[whatwg] Low Memory Event

[Charles Pritchard]

On 1/1/2011 4:07 PM, Glenn Maynard wrote:
> On Sat, Jan 1, 2011 at 5:04 PM, Charles Pritchard<chuck at jumis.com>  wrote:
>> The separation of Mobile and Desktop seems arbitrary, in terms of specs:
>> if it's useful on the mobile, why would it not be useful on the desktop?
>>
>> It's the same concept, a memory warning.
> I fully agree that no HTML spec should make a distinction in any way
> between mobile and desktop.  It's an impossible distinction to
> maintain from a spec perspective, as it's hopelessly blurry--mobile
> phones having higher and higher specs, iPads straddling the line in
> the middle, netbooks pushing in from the other direction, and the
> whole industry being a rapidly moving target that no spec will keep up
> with.  I believe there are differences in practice that make low
> memory events not very useful on desktops, but that decision should be
> left to browsers.
...
> My point was that the event needs to give enough information to
> *allow* the application's logic to do this correctly.
>
...
> mechanism.)  If applications aren't given enough information to
> reasonably decide what to do, they'll have a single, universal
> response which will be correct in some cases and probably incorrect in
> many others.  (Or, they'll have to try to infer what it means based on
> the browser and platform, which seems to defeat the purpose of
> speccing it.)

I'm perfectly fine if a desktop implementer decides that they are not 
going to send low memory events.
For me, the purpose of getting the event in the specs is to promote its 
use, and ensure that the HTML
spec for mobile and desktop stays in sync.

It's clearly a useful event for mobile; even if desktop vendors decide 
not to fire events, it'd be good
to see it in the specs.