[whatwg] Proposal: createImageBitmap should return a "Promise" instead of using a callback

[Ian Hickson]

On Wed, 19 Jun 2013, Justin Novosad wrote:
>
> I was about to launch the implementation of window.createImageBitmap in 
> Blink, and I received feedback on the blink-dev mailing list that the 
> "Promise" API is the wave of the future for asynchronous JS, and that 
> the new createImageBitmap method should use Promises.
> 
> Current spec:
> http://www.whatwg.org/specs/web-apps/current-work/multipage/timers.html#images
> 
> The proposal is to change the ImageBitmapFactories IDL to something like 
> this:
> 
> [NoInterfaceObject]
> interface ImageBitmapFactories {
>   Promise createImageBitmap(ImageBitmapSource image, optional long sx, long
> sy, long sw, long sh);
> };
> 
> The value of the promise would resolve to an ImageBitmap object.

Done.


On Thu, 20 Jun 2013, Anne van Kesteren wrote:
> 
> I think something like
> 
> interface ImageBitmap {
>   static Promise create(ImageBitmapSource image, optional long sx,
> long sy, long sw, long sh);
> };
> 
> would be much nicer.

Why?


On Thu, 20 Jun 2013, Justin Novosad wrote:
>
> I agree it would be nicer, but it seems less consistent with other 
> existing APIs.

Indeed.


On Thu, 20 Jun 2013, Tab Atkins Jr. wrote:
> 
> There's really no consistency here anyway, and the "Interface.create()" 
> idiom is pretty easy and nice.

There are basically two styles:

 - constructors (new Date(), new Function(), etc)
 - factory methods on the "parent" object (document.createElement(), 
   implementation.createDocument(), context.createLinearGradient(), etc)

I don't think we have anything that uses the interface.create() pattern. 
URL.createObjectURL() is the closest, and it's not a factory.

The constructor pattern is obviously better where possible, but in this 
case it's not, since it has to be async (hence Promises).

-- 
Ian Hickson               U+1047E                )\._.,--....,'``.    fL
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