JavaScript 2015?

[Allen Wirfs-Brock]

On Jan 23, 2015, at 12:08 AM, Aaron Frost wrote:

> Trying to understand the cadenced release process. In the past a Final Draft would be cut and allowed to bake for 12 months before an Official Approval by the Ecma General Assembly. Is that 12-month bake still going to be in place? 

I can only speak about ES5 (don't know about ES1,2,3 but a I'm pretty sure there wasn't a year long bake period before each of those).

The 12 month make was has been aspirational, but the reality is messier.

For ES5 we issued the first "Candidate Final Draft" in April 2009,  a TC39 "Approval Draft"  Sept 1, 2009 (it was approved by TC39 Sept 23, 2009) and we then released the  final document (with minor editoral corrections) into the Ecma GA approval process.  The Ecma GA accepted in as a standard at the Dec. 2009 meeting.

For ES6, we tried to say we were feature complete in Jan 2014 but the reality is that it wasn't until either the June or July meeting that we firmly closed the door on new features. Most of the changes that have occurred since then have been about cutting, completing or fixing the specification (and where necessary the design) of features that had already been accepted into the spec. 

> 
> If this 12-month bake is still around, that would mean that the Final Draft for ES 2016 will need to be cut by June of this year, so that it can bake for 12 months and be ready by June 2016 for an Official Approval. This would mean that features not hardened enough by June 2015 will not make it into ES 2016.  
> 
> If this is not how it will work, could you share the expected process of future releases? I am very interested to hear how it will work. 

Working backwards, here is the end game for ES6 release:

Early June 2015: Ecma GA approval at their semi-annual meeting
April 1-June (Ecma CC and GA review period, editorial preparation of publication document)
March 26, Approval of Final Draft at March 24-26 TC39 meeting
    this is the last date that TC39 can approve and achieve June GA approval
    after this point, the only changes can be minor editorial or technical bug correction that don't require TC39 review
Feb. 20, Final Approval Draft Release
    Member organization need at least 30 days before voting to approve
    Reported bugs will continue to be fixed
Feb 2-19, Editor frantically incorporates Jan. meeting technical changes plus technical and editorial bug fixes to produce final draft.
Jan 27-29, TC39 meeting
   Produce a small set of final technical changes for the editor to apply
   This must be a very small delta from current spec. as there is really no time for major spec. change or for another technical review cycle

(At various points in the above schedule, the editor may release intermediate draft updates)

Allen