[whatwg] Proposal for separating script downloads and execution
Kyle Simpson
getify at gmail.com
Mon Feb 14 07:55:48 PST 2011
> You may be correct in that people may never want to set preload to false.
> You'll note that I put in my proposal that an alternate approach would be
> for preload to be set to true by default.
Since your proposal also says that setting `preload` to `false` wouldn't do
anything except not *require* the preload (in other words, it wouldn't
strictly prevent the preload), then what would be the use of someone being
able to set it to `false`? In other words, what's the benefit of being able
to tell the browser, "Preloading is not required, but you can still preload
if you want to?" That seems basically like a moot no-op.
If preload is going to default to `true`, and setting it to `false` is
really a moot functionality, we're almost back to my core proposal, except
for the fact that having an explicit `preload` property gives an admittedly
nicer feature-detect.
> This would allow even easier feature detection...
Honestly, whether `preload` defaults to `false` or `true`, your
feature-detect for your proposal can be more simplified (no use of `typeof`)
like this:
if (script.preload === true) /* or */ if (script.preload === false)
> I think changing the behavior of dynamic script elements to match IE's isn't
> a bad idea, but...
Nicholas, I would still like to hear your thoughts/response on the core
reason I'm pushing to **identically** match IE: that if we specify something
that IE will have to change about their implementation, we're automatically
pushing out the time-frame of when we might possibly get to full-compat on
this issue, from say 4-8 months (reasonable for all other browsers to
respond) to 1-2 years (the typical release-cycle for IE).
I have conceded that your v2.1 proposal is both more semantic and has a
better feature-detect than my proposal. BUT, as is often the case, the
pragmatics of how we can achieve full-compat sometimes outweigh the benefits
of holding out for the more "correct" solution.
Given the convergence of proposals, with that point being really the last
major sticking point, I think it's time to start talking in terms of the
pragmatics. I believe this is a case where the pragmatics of existing
implementation and spec wording have greater influence than the desire to
create new precedent for the sake of correctness.
--Kyle
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