[whatwg] Application defined "locks"

[Jeremy Orlow]

On Sat, Sep 12, 2009 at 1:20 AM, Aaron Boodman <aa at google.com> wrote:

> On Fri, Sep 11, 2009 at 9:03 AM, Mike Shaver <mike.shaver at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> > Aaron,
> >
> > You're right, my recollection is quite incorrect.  My apologies for
> > unfairly describing the origin of the proposal.
>
> I forgive you :).
>
> In fact, the many design changes to the database API were made
> precisely because they made it more webby, within the constraints of
> being SQL-based. As on example, the fully asynchronous API was done to
> avoid blocking the UI thead, something that is important for web
> browsers. All of this played out on the WhatWG mailing list over
> several months with input from many vendors, but admittedly, mostly
> Google and Apple (not for want of other input -- just because we
> seemed to be the two that most wanted this feature).
>
> > Do you agree with Jeremy that Database is too far along in terms of
> > deployment to have significant changes made to it?  Given that we're
> > still hashing our major philosophical elements with respect to
> > transactionality and locking in parts of HTML5, I can imagine it being
> > quite desirable to make Database conform to whatever model we settle
> > on.  "Does the localStorage mutex plus onbeforeunload plus Database
> > transaction collision equal deadlock?", etc.
>
> I don't think that is what Jeremy was saying (emphasis mine):
>
> On Fri, Sep 11, 2009 at 1:26 AM, Jeremy Orlow <jorlow at chromium.org> wrote:
> > In theory.  In practice, once a vendor has shipped something, it's
> somewhat
> > sacred.  Once multiple have, it's even more so.  ****This is somewhat
> > unfortunate, in my opinion, since very few people are using localStorage
> or
> > DB yet****, but it's now very difficult to correct even major problems in
> the
> > spec.
>
> Picking another message from very early in the other thread that
> spawned this one:
>
> On Tue, Sep 8, 2009 at 1:08 AM, Jeremy Orlow <jorlow at chromium.org> wrote:
> > First of all, I'm not sure I agree that we're at the point where
> > breaking compatibility is impossible.  It really doesn't seem like it's
> > terribly widely used, and what's implemented is based on an early draft
> of
> > the spec.  Yes, I agree that it's really unfortunate we didn't iron these
> > problems out better before everyone implemented it, but if LocalStorage
> > changed today, it definitely wouldn't break the web.  (Of course, it's
> > possible that we would be breaking the web by the time the next gen of
> the
> > major browsers ship.....it's hard to know for sure.)
>
> Throughout, he has reiterated his belief that we are *not* too far
> along to change the design.
>

Exactly.  I think there are some major design flaws and that we should
correct them.  It's others who are saying the current designs, though
majorly flawed, are too entrenched to change.
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