[whatwg] <eventsource>/RemoteEventSource wierdness

Thu Feb 19 03:10:54 PST 2009

On 17.2.09 22:53, Jonas Sicking wrote:
> This could also replace the IMHO awkward<eventsource>  element. I
> don't understand the value of having this element at all. It seems to
> me that if the only way you can use an API is through script, then
> making the API into an element is adding extra complexity to the HTML
> language for little to no gain.

I seem to recall reading once that it's not the case that the only way you can use the API is through script -- sort of.  At one time I believe the intent was that an onmessage attribute on <body> would allow you to have handlers without needing to run script to set them.  You would of course still need script to execute for the handler to run.

That said, I don't think that reason is at all compelling.

As far as any list of features to cut (spin into other specifications) goes, I would rate this one fairly high on it, particularly if the element API were scrapped in favor of a pure-script API.  There are interactions with the current task-queueing mechanism in HTML5, to be sure, but eventsource is mostly a consumer of those mechanisms, not a contributory component of it.  I don't think eventsource's removal would affect the continuing evolution of the queueing mechanism in any meaningful way.

Jeff