TC39 process: clarify two things

[rauschma]

It’s not terribly important, but maybe you’d like to know. Two things in the TC39 process document are not 100% clear to me, as an outsider:

• “Implementation Types Expected: Shipping”
  Does that mean: “not behind a flag”? I’d consider an experimental implementation or a spec-compliant implementation “shipping”, too.
• “Indicate that the addition is ready for inclusion in the formal ECMAScript standard”
  Maybe it makes sense to distinguish two things: First, when will the feature be added to a draft of the language spec. Second, when will the language spec be ratified as a standard (again)? The quoted sentence seems to imply that both happen at the same time.

[bterlson]

Does that mean: “not behind a flag”? I’d consider an experimental implementation or a spec-compliant implementation “shipping”, too.

It could, or could not, depending on the feature. Right now it has to be a judgement call, and I think that's ok.

Maybe it makes sense to distinguish two things: First, when will the feature be added to a draft of the language spec. Second, when will the language spec be ratified as a standard (again)? The quoted sentence seems to imply that both happen at the same time.

The draft is what is ultimately ratified into a standard, so anything below stage 4 should not be included in a draft. That said, the editor may apply some discretion here and begin integrating features with a very high likelihood to hit stage 4 to ensure that said feature makes it into a draft. You can think of GA ratification as an implicit stage 5.

tl;dr seems intentionally vague and I'm ok with that as I think we can follow the spirit of the document and don't need to endlessly debate what exactly constitutes an implementation, what shipping means, etc.

[bterlson]

Does that mean: “not behind a flag”? I’d consider an experimental implementation or a spec-compliant implementation “shipping”, too.

It could, or could not, depending on the feature. Right now it has to be a judgement call, and I think that's ok.

Maybe it makes sense to distinguish two things: First, when will the feature be added to a draft of the language spec. Second, when will the language spec be ratified as a standard (again)? The quoted sentence seems to imply that both happen at the same time.

The draft is what is ultimately ratified into a standard, so anything below stage 4 should not be included in a draft. That said, the editor may apply some discretion here and begin integrating features with a very high likelihood to hit stage 4 to ensure that said feature makes it into a draft. You can think of GA ratification as an implicit stage 5.

tl;dr seems intentionally vague and I'm ok with that as I think we can follow the spirit of the document and don't need to endlessly debate what exactly constitutes an implementation, what shipping means, etc.

[rauschma]

Thanks, helpful! Array.prototype.includes seems to be beyond stage 4, but isn’t included in the spec, yet.

tl;dr seems intentionally vague and I'm ok with that as I think we can follow the spirit of the document and don't need to endlessly debate what exactly constitutes an implementation, what shipping means, etc.

Agreed.

[rauschma]

Thanks, helpful! Array.prototype.includes seems to be beyond stage 4, but isn’t included in the spec, yet.

tl;dr seems intentionally vague and I'm ok with that as I think we can follow the spirit of the document and don't need to endlessly debate what exactly constitutes an implementation, what shipping means, etc.

Agreed.

[bterlson]

A.p.includes is checked in but not yet released. I'll release a draft tomorrow! (Was planning on it today but it's a hectic time for me :-P)

[bterlson]

A.p.includes is checked in but not yet released. I'll release a draft tomorrow! (Was planning on it today but it's a hectic time for me :-P)