My good friend Dan Grigsby has a new blog: Mobile Orchard. It’s all about iPhone development. He’s started up a podcast series kicking things off with Hampton Catlin, creator of the iPedia app. Check it out, it’s good stuff. Dan has a keen eye for what developers like and need. I’m looking forward to seeing what Mobile Orchard holds in store.
When I was at The Ajax Experience this past week, a couple different people asked my opinion on ES-Harmony (and the demise of ES4). And then I remembered that my poor blog has been quite lonely lately.
So here’s my thoughts, pretty straightforward: I’m glad to see everyone moving in the same direction. I think ultimately it was the right decision, but I feel a bit disappointed too. My understanding of what happened is that some of the core foundation of the design — namespacing and program units — proved unworkable under extended scrutiny. And without them it was thought that a clean slate with lessons learned would be best. This was a “good” reason for ES4 to fail, and there’s a subtle point in this: the design process worked as intended! Unlike some have claimed, there was no intent to “rush” ES4 to standardization. Instead, there was steady, iterative work using a reference implementation and real-world implementations to gather experience. And in time it was discovered that certain features came at too great a cost. Better to find that out now than later — which is how it’s supposed to work, isn’t it?
I look forward to what ES-Harmony will bring, and ES-3.1 can’t get here soon enough. (As in, the design for it *should* have already been completed. *cough*) I sense some “hardliner” stances may be unfolding with regard to ES-Harmony, which would certainly prove to be a bad thing. I hope I’m mistaken about this.