Work

Optimal Language Design is Hard: A Case Study in ECMAScript (JavaScript) Standardization

Year: 2025
Type: conference-paper
Abstract: In addition to requirements of a purely technical nature, the evolution of widely adopted programming languages is often governed by preferences of individual members---either persons or organizations---of the language maintenance team, who may associate issues with particular design aspects. For example, when adding a new primitive data type to a language, language designers may suggest alternative semantics for equality to existing data types, as well as explicitly specify issues they wish to avoid (such as inconsistent behavior among number-like types). The decision-making process can span over multiple years and can be highly unstructured, and in a dynamic and distributed language design team, the cumulated understanding of previously discussed design alternatives can thus be lost over time.
Language: English
Open Access status: hybrid
OpenAlex ID: W4411369500
FWCI:
Cites: 32
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Related to: 10