[webkit-dev] new API proposal for window.console - a new method "table"

[Patrick Mueller]

A proposal to add a new method to the "window.console" object has
been made in:

     Bug 38664: Web Inspector: add a "table" method to console,
                to allow output of tabular data
     https://bugs.webkit.org/show_bug.cgi?id=38664

There was recently a discussion (IRC?) on another a different
method being proposed to add to "window.console".  Part of the
discussion had to do with security, and the other part had
to do with adding new "API", since "window.console" is a
public facing object.

I don't believe there is a security issue with this method,
but there is obviously the same issue regarding new API.

Is there a process for adding new API?  In this case,
for the "window.console" object.

I suspect one of the factors when considering adding new
APIs is what the other browser vendors are doing - do they
already have this API or are they planning on adding it?

In this case, I contacted the FireBug team regarding the
API, and it turns out they implemented it before we did!

    http://www.softwareishard.com/blog/firebug/tabular-logs-in-firebug/

Jan "Honza" Odvarko from FireBug has been contributing
to discussion on the referenced bug.  There is now a
working patch for WebKit attached to the bug.

There is an informal proposal with examples available here:

    http://muellerware.org/papers/console-table.html

I've not contacted any of the other browser/debugger
developers.


-- 
Patrick Mueller