[whatwg] Renaming Interface Window
Ian Hickson
ian at hixie.ch
Mon Dec 14 11:08:56 PST 2009
On Mon, 14 Dec 2009, John J Barton wrote:
>
> (I made a comment on the doc along these lines but I am uncertain about
> whether these comments work).
They work. :-)
> The HTML5 spec uses the heavily overloaded word "Window" for an interface:
> http://www.whatwg.org/specs/web-apps/current-work/multipage/browsers.html#the-window-object
>
> This overloading causes confusion and coding errors. In a new
> specification, selecting a new made up word for this important interface
> simplifies the documentation, discussion, and coding with the interface.
It's not a new interface. It's the interface implemented by all
(scriptable) browsers and called Window by all those browsers.
> I'm sure I don't have to enumerate all the overloadings, as reader here
> will be quite familiar with them. There is no one certain thing called
> "Window". In the context of HTML5, there is one certain thing called
> 'window', the global scope for Javascript. However unfortunate that
> choice may have been, it was made. HTML5 can avoid confusion by taking a
> new name rather than "Window".
We don't get to pick the name -- the name is what browsers already
implement and what the Web depends on.
> Based on the document, it seems like the interface in question would be "BrowsingContext". Consider:
> "...each browsing context has a WindowProxy object."
> and
>
> interface Window {
> // the current browsing context
> readonly attribute WindowProxy window;
>
> These could read:
> "...each BrowsingContext has a WindowProxy object."
> and
>
> interface BrowsingContext {
> // the proxy for the current browsing context
> readonly attribute WindowProxy browsingContext;
As far as I can tell that would be wrong. The Window object is a DOM
object, it's not the same as the browsing context, which is a UA
construct.
--
Ian Hickson U+1047E )\._.,--....,'``. fL
http://ln.hixie.ch/ U+263A /, _.. \ _\ ;`._ ,.
Things that are impossible just take longer. `._.-(,_..'--(,_..'`-.;.'
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