@mediaAjax day 2.6: Wrap-up discussion panel

The final session of @mediAjax was a discussion panel, starring Brendan Eich [BE], Stuart Langridge [SL], Alex Russell [AR] and Douglas Crockford [DC], ably chaired by Jeremy Keith (so Patrick & Jeremy made up, which is nice) and it ran with JK posing questions submitted by the audience and moderating the discussion:

Mobile & JS:

[Nobody mentioned Cameron Moll-style mobile user-centred design.]

Not much impact other than [BE] report from Opera regarding eBay, use of eval for self-modifying code and its impact on battery life.

Libraries:

No consensus other than [SL] use what works with you/your team and use libraries to level the DOM playing field.

WCAG2 & JS?

Dojo and ARIA are interim measures.

Standardise libraries?

Not necessary but combine forces for a common voice.

Can JS ever be secure?

[DC] No, we need a secure dialect, but there are things we can do to help.

[BE] Things like mashups are the killer problem & there is no silver bullet.

[AR] Google Gears, "trust domain", Open Ajax Alliance.

[BE] Gears' "worker pools" excellent & might end up in Firefox.

[AR] Must remember that in life risks are mitigated not solved, only Internet gives the false impression that it’s 100% solvable. (Mentioned "Capability Models"? see "Confused deputy" by Norm Hardy.)

JS2 = Java?

[BE] No, JS2 class is for integrity not Java-like object model. JS2 is not fixed & they’d welcome feedback but class & receive/dispatch methods are needed.

[DC] Standpoint is don’t add syntax.

[AR] All of the toolkits do this stuff so JS2 should follow if it’s needed.

Is proprietary a hindrance? (Silverlight, Air, Flash, Gears?)

[AR] If the text on the wire is lost, lots of collateral benefits will be go (spidering etc.)

[BE] Tension! Proprietary gives better control but Open Source encourages competition, both benefits.

To be honest, the discussion panel was a bit disappointing and JK rounded it up with a bland "we've made progress from the WASP DOM Task Force days", but it was a tough conference to sum-up and there were obvious tensions between the panel-members.

I guess they needed my special question so it was a shame I'd not gotten around to asking it! Here it is: What skills do employers of web developers want in graduates? What should educational institutions teach for workers in the modern web? Comments welcome...