I use JavaScript as a full-time profession and must agree that there are things that need improvement. The issues with Javasscript are completely obvious to anyone who uses it every day. Simply put, it has stagnated and needs improvements. The web pages we were doing in 1999 are nothing like what we are doing now! So, it stands to reason that we need to improve the language.

You must change or die!

As far as incompatibility – I think you need to address this with specific test cases. You must put together a massive automated set of Javascript tests to validate compatibility. I suspect that the complaints revolve around what are really Microsoft bugs – which, obviously require a bug fix from Microsoft, but not necessarily a change in the standard!

As far as the language getting too large, that’s really best determined by the number of lines of C++ code it takes to implement, the memory footprint, the execution speed. So, I would suggest that the reference implementations better darn well demonstrate that these language changes are wise. After all, these standards will go into mobile phones!

As far as the language getting too complicated for people just trying to hack some code – this seems a spurious argument as long as the language is backwards compatible. So, just make sure it stays backwards incompatible.

I urge you to do the best job you can. My long-term livelihood depends upon you.

Scott.