Re:AlaSQL.js – JavaScript SQL Database for Browser and Node.js
by Klathmon on Monday January 14, 2019 @01:46PM
(#18905284)
But that requirement is the only thing that keeps one browser engine from being able to run FAR ahead and take over the standards process.
Without that requirement, PNaCL would be the standard not WebAssembly, without that requirement ShadowDOM would be Chrome's version and not the version that most browsers are implementing now and which most people agree is better.
It's not just a philosophical goal, but one that has time and time again found issues with proposed standards and prevented them from being included.
It may keep some things out of the standards which should be in it, but it also keeps a LOT of mistakes out as well.
Creating two+ independent implementations before allowing the spec to be adopted may be too much work, but the same would be true of HTML5 or modern DOM specs to implement from scratch today. Fighting to ensure that there are multiple implementations of standards is a noble goal (incidentally, a fight we're in dire need of for HTML/DOM), but expecting these implementations to materialise fully formed for new standards is a severely limiting requirement.
Without that requirement, supporting WebSQL would be less work for browser makers and web developers alike. Who knows, competing implementations might even have followed down the line had the spec. been adopted.