[TLUG]: ECMAScript ("Javascript") Version 4 - FALSE ALARM

[Douglas Crockford]

Robert Sayre wrote:
> Fighting over the name is pointless. It's not a good name, and web
> developers call it "JavaScript". 

The name is exactly the point. A new language should have a new name. The deltas 
from ES3 to the proposed language are larger than ES3 itself. Claims of backward 
compatibility do not change the fact that there is more than enough new material 
in the proposal to make it a new language.

But at this point in time I would resist standardizing the new language simply 
because we do not have enough practical experience with it to know if it is good 
enough to be worth standardizing. I can think of one instance in history when a 
standards committee produced a good, new design, and that was a long time ago. 
The current proposal is no Algol 60. It's not even an Algol 68.

ES3, aka JavaScript, aka JScript, aka ECMAScript is a small language with a lot 
of, as you say, not good names. I am in favor of making careful and modest 
improvements to the language, correcting as much as possible the problems that 
are most troublesome to actual usage.

As responsible stewards of the language, we should not be trying to transform 
ECMAScript into something else. I don't care what you call your new strongly 
typed classical language, as long as you don't call it JavaScript or ECMAScript.