triblondon
commented
7 years ago @bkardell I have a few thoughts on this:
Are the semantics of polyfill widely understood or not widely understood?
Here we should distinguish between recognition (how many people have heard this word) and comprehension (how many agree on the same definition, or even attach any meaning to it at all). Polyfill has very good recognition, but I would argue, fairly poor comprehension, partly because the word 'prollyfill' is so close to it, that the two words come to be used interchangably.
People close to the standards process or the higher echelons of web development can bikeshed all they like on the definitions and precisely where the balance point is but if you can't offer a clearly descriptive name then it doesn't matter anyway, since those definitions will not be widely understood.
I am slightly worried about (6). "Recommend" is a big word in W3C talk - it's the very highest W3C bar and it's coming from the TAG
I'm not an experienced standards person and happy to be guided on more appropriate language here. I'll look to work with other TAG members to improve that.
I honestly don't care what that term is and I'm not saying "don't do (6)". I'm not saying "damn cogent arguments" - I'm just saying "please consider all of these things very carefully".
This is a well argued point, thank you. I think we do need to acknowledge the existing usage more, and not try to change the nomenclature, but perhaps offer caution over using terms without offering any definition or context that would help a reader/user to infer the correct interpretation in case their understanding of the term is different.
Action: Rework the nomenclature section.
Brian Kardell had some concerns about focusing exclusively on the term 'polyfill'. His comments follow:
====
It sounds a little off how the piece currently reads/progresses... What I read in this document that sounds not quite right to my ear is a progression that goes something like:
Surely through that progression you can understand why I say 'it sounds a little off?' It reads a little flip-floppy. Are the semantics of polyfill widely understood or not widely understood? Are the semantics of the others not well defined or is there data that they are also not understood (by whom, only people familliar with the term?) or are they simply not popular enough to pass the same bar for not suggesting a new term? I feel like that 'sound' could use help/clarity. To be very clear - I think this is an important/necessary document, I just want it to be the best it can be.
Because of that, secondarily, I am slightly worried about (6). "Recommend" is a big word in W3C talk - it's the very highest W3C bar and it's coming from the TAG. Here's why it worries me - you've seen the XKCD comic about standards, right? If the problem is that there are N terms, you're inevitably creating N+1 and only if the new one can replace all the others is it really successful... Has TAG ever attempted to coin a new "well defined and well understood" term in a finding before? Has it worked? Is there any prior use of "speculative polyfill" in the wild or any reason to think it will be successful? I note very specifically all of these things about "prollyfill" meaning exactly what you are trying to define specifically for this reason. Because we tried unsuccessfully to find/float a term before prollyfill 'took'. A group of people from various groups around the world (true, potentially not Japan and not 'everybody') latched onto prollyfill. Truth be told, I don't like "prollyfill" as a term in retrospect. My feelings about "prollyfill" are almost exactly what Remy's were in the linked piece - I honestly didn't/don't care what we call it, as long as we called it something and could get everyone to be able to communicate about it more effectively. Since then it however has appeared in books, magazines, conference talks, podcasts, blog posts and discussions. I merely want to recognize that that particular genie can't be put back in the bottle. It happened, it's just fact. Perhaps a goodly number of people don't know it still and we can eventually replace it, but all of those things till now will now suddenly be wrong/misleading. That's a lot of suddenly misinformation to have floating around in a lot of formats. Further, only if everyone actually does use the new term do we make the situation measurably better to specifically recommend a new one. Note the document can easily refer to it as it likes and list its reasons for doing so without recommending everyone else adopt it too. Make the case why you do it. Adoption will happen, or it won't regardless of good or bad a term (any term), like the thing discussed here, will hit a tipping point. I honestly don't care what that term is and I'm not saying "don't do (6)". I'm not saying "damn cogent arguments" - I'm just saying "please consider all of these things very carefully".