[whatwg] StringEncoding: encode() return type looks weird in the IDL

[Boris Zbarsky]

On 8/5/12 12:29 PM, Glenn Maynard wrote:
> My recollection is this was to allow returning Uint16Array (or, more
> specifically but currently unresolved, Uint16LEArray and Uint16BEArray) for
> encoding to UTF-16 and UTF-16BE.

If that ever happens the return value can be changed at that point. 
It's silly to build in "extensibility" like this, imo, because there's 
absolutely no reason for it: changing the return value to a superclass 
is completely transparent to JS consumers.  On the other hand, there's 
certainly a drawback to having less-specific return values: it gives 
JITs less information to work with in terms of optimizing the code.

-Boris