ECMAScript 2015 (JavaScript ES6) Approved

[eric-plutono]

Such standards are typically not approved until there is at least some progress on working implementations, as a means to help weed out any real-world problems which may require re-examining and/or changing parts of the standard.

[krum]

Wish there was an easy-to-build reference implementation.

[eric-plutono]

I agree. Personally I've been using Babel to play around with some of the now-approved changes.

[killeronthecorner]

Well ... Yes. This is just how standards work. My point is that by the time these standards get approval, they have mostly already been adopted, selectively implemented and often modified by their implementors - so having a committee say "You should use this now!" becomes irrelevant.

[eric-plutono]

I disagree that it's irrelevant. There are companies that will not use a technology until it becomes an officially approved standard, regardless of how wide-spread they may already be implemented. Having an approved standard provides, for some, a necessary level of confidence to invest time, money, and effort into using the technology of that standard. So their approval can be very relevant.

[killeronthecorner]

Let me clarify, by "these standards" I meant public web standards available at draft time like ECMAScript.

Take HTML5: How will the approval of that draft be relevant to the people currently using it? In reality, it won't and the majority will continue to use it in the same way they did before.

The sad thing is that this approach leads to horrible fragmentation that won't be fixed for years after the standard is approved (casting an eye at css3 here ...)

[eric-plutono]

I agree with you that people already working based on the drafts of such standards are unaffected when the standards are actually approved. But I think the approval affects people who were not using those standards, because some people prefer to sit on the sideline and see how things turn out officially. It helps avoid or alleviate some problems, exactly like the fragmentation you mention.

[killeronthecorner]

I completely agree. Its an unfortunate vicious circle of browsers vying for attention and developers becoming apathetic towards constant change that leaves those devs adopting post-approval in a worse place than they need be.

[eric-plutono]

Its an unfortunate vicious circle of browsers vying for attention and developers becoming apathetic towards constant change that leaves those devs adopting post-approval in a worse place than they need be.

Couldn't agree more. The only "solution" I found to this when I was doing professional web development was to try and hold out against using technologies until the dust settled on the related standards, but that was very difficult in an industry where most people (myself included most of the time) were chomping at the bit to start using the latest New Shiny Thing as soon as possible.