[webkit-dev] DOMAttrModified events in WebKit

[Peter Kasting]

On Tue, Jan 5, 2010 at 4:50 PM, Chris Marrin <cmarrin at apple.com> wrote:

> I don't think the discussion here should be whether or not mutation events
> a A Good Thing or not. They are being put to good use in Firefox already and
> they are part of DOM Level 2 already. The question should be whether they
> would add value to WebKit without penalizing performance when they are not
> used.


I don't know what the right decision is, but I disagree that this is the
only relevant question.  For a hypothetical example, let me pull out my
favorite whipping boy, sync XHR.  If sync XHR were being considered today,
the question would not solely be "does it hurt perf when it's not used",
because where it _is_ used, it can cause major problems (e.g. apparent
lockups).  By not implementing support for this, combined with providing
better alternatives, we could have pushed authors toward alternate solutions
that were better for users.

Sadly, the decision point on that case is long past.  But not necessarily so
with mutation events.  If it is true that we have the ability to implement a
superior solution instead of enabling more people to use an inferior one,
then it is worth giving some real consideration. We should only implement
mutation events as-is if we believe they are a true *fait accompli*, already
in broad use in the wild, and supporting them is necessary for web compat;
or if we believe that there are use cases that cannot//will not be addressed
with other proposals.  I do not know whether those are the case or not.  I
do know that "part of DOM level 2" is not necessarily the same thing as
"broadly used/supported".

PK
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