Francis Cheng

A recently released ECMAScript 4 draft specification for object initializers includes significant enhancements to the expressive power of object initializers. This post focuses on the ability to designate specific properties as fixtures, which is not possible in ECMAScript 3rd edition or ActionScript 3.0.

You may have used object initializers in ActionScript 3.0 before. They provide an easy way to assign a literal value to a variable of type Object. For example, in ActionScript 3.0, you may see something like:

Continue reading "Object Initializers and Fixtures for ECMAScript 4th Edition" »

Posted by Francis Cheng at 10:30 AM | Permalink | Comments (5)

Today, Adobe's Flash Player team introduced the new public bug and issue tracking system. This replaces the old wishform where you submitted bugs and enhancement requests but could not track the issue's progress. The new system is based on the same JIRA issue tracking system already in use by the Flex and Core ActionScript teams. This means that you will be able to first search to see whether someone has already reported the issue. If you find that someone has done so, you can vote for that issue to raise its visibility. Thereafter, you can track the issue's progress. Here's the official announcement of the page and another link to the page itself:

• Introducing the Flash Player bug and issue management system
• Adobe Bug and Issue Management System

Posted by Francis Cheng at 04:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Adobe's Jeff Dyer has released a new draft of the ECMAScript 4th Edition normative grammar. The updated draft is available in both PDF and XLS formats. Here are the relevant links:

• Normative Grammar Proposal on the ECMAScript Wiki site, with links to both PDF and XLS versions
• Direct link to the PDF version of the normative grammar
• Direct link to the XLS version of the normative grammar
• Jeff's announcment to the ES4-Discuss mailing list about the updated grammar

Continue reading "New Draft of ECMAScript 4 Edition Grammar Released" »

Posted by Francis Cheng at 10:53 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Brendan Eich reports that the Proper Tail Calls proposal for ECMAScript 4th Edition has been dropped. Brendan mentioned in a posting to the ES4-Discuss list yesterday that the proposal was dropped at the committee meeting last Friday:

"...(news flash) proper tail calls are out of ES4 as of yesterday's Ecma TC39 meeting, by general (regretful, in Mozilla's case) agreement."

It's not in the meeting notes yet, but I'm sure it will be added before the meeting notes are finalized. I guess the writing was on the wall, because the only three companies that have commented on this feature have all marked this feature as a low priority in the ES4 Progress Tracking Spreadsheet.

Posted by Francis Cheng at 08:59 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

John Resig, Mozilla's JavaScript Evangelist and creator of jQuery, has created a spreadsheet to track the progress of the various implementations of ECMAScript 4th Edition. There are about a half-dozen implementations in development, including the reference implementation that the ECMAScript working group is developing. Here's a brief description of the implementations so that you know what's what when you take a gander at the spreadsheet:

Continue reading "ECMAScript 4 Edition Progress Spreadsheet" »

Posted by Francis Cheng at 10:35 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)