I have some thoughts about #smooshMap, this is a thread.
there are a few dynamics going on in that conversation.
1) people are angry at a silly name
2) people are upset that people are so willing to break the web
but there is more going on
there are a few dynamics going on in that conversation.
1) people are angry at a silly name
2) people are upset that people are so willing to break the web
but there is more going on
between this, there are people upset that an old library can dictate how javascript is spec'd,
and there are people who are upset that developers are not recognizing that the web is not only what is written today, or a few years ago, but the entire history of the web, which affects another demographic other than developers: users
add to this that its not clear what impact an old library might have. what are our usage statistics? can we rely on chromes tracking alone? how do we read this data? what is the data? can we get more data? why are we making decisions the way that we are?
is it possible to get enough data even? windows xp is an old operating system, support was dropped for it, and then wannacry hit. The situation was different but it underlines the fact that simply because something is old and not maintained doesn't mean it isn't being used
people engage with the web in all sorts of ways, we can try to predict what the effect of a descision will be, but the truth is we might not really know, and we could put some people at a huge disadvantage. this is the argument for staying on the safe side of decision making
this having been said, it is impossible to know all the ways in which javascript is written, and some small library somewhere might be broken by a decision made by the committee. So a very fair question that people have is "where is the line"
this is one facet of the discussion that is going on, there's more!
we should all be asking "why didn't people think this was a joke"
and i think that is because emotionally, javascript developers feel ostracized from the decision making process
when you feel like you are being affected by decisions that you have no power to inform, things feel unfair and irrational. When you are not given good reasons (or reasons that you understand) you will feel angry and upset. This is a normal response
and this is something that we can do better! opposition is one form of causing change, but it can break bridges and make it hard to trust one another. Collaboration is another possibility (it also comes with its own draw backs)
so for those who collaboration is an option and you want to make things easier, please get in touch because that is what i want to do as well. lets lower the barrier to engagement and make the decisions that the tc39 makes easier to understand and more accessible
because otherwise, no one wins
also i have like, zero reach because im a bit of a hermit, so please retweet for reach so we can make this productive!
