Comments on: IE: Sucking Hard Since Version 5

By: Tekk Noir

Tekk Noir — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 17:32:21 +0000

Yeah, agreed, the trailing comma is syntactically incorrect, I wouldn't expect that code to work without at least throwing an error; incomplete data set is incomplete.

However, it stands as testament to the other browsers that they can handle that error without keeling over, and it's not like having a null value in an array is something that should cause your entire browser to explode.

By: David

David — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 07:03:01 +0000

I agree with the trailing comma, since it is the correct behaviour according to ECMAscript. But stopping interpreting your code, and breaking everything else – is definitely not the correct behaviour. It should work fine, but a warning is probably in place, though.

By: James Parker

James Parker — Sun, 12 Jul 2009 02:07:04 +0000

Adam,

As much as I detest being on the same side as MicroSoft, the trailing comma is, in fact, a syntax error which should be caught. While it might be an inadvertent interpretation of comma as terminator rather than separator, it might just as easily be interpreted as a missing list element.

Tracking down syntactically correct semantic errors is difficult enough; letting syntax errors slip through (without at least a warning message) makes tracking them down even more difficult.

James

By: Adam S

Adam S — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 01:30:56 +0000

@David, browsers operate in quirks mode 99% of the time, unfortunately. All major browsers understood this. IE broke ALL the js because of that. It should know better.

By: David

David — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 01:27:18 +0000

It appears that Internet Explorer is behaving correctly: according to ECMAScript grammar, the last item should not have a comma following it. Any browser in which this code works is accepting invalid syntax.

From ECMA-262, 11.1.5:
ObjectLiteral :
{}
{ PropertyNameAndValueList }

PropertyNameAndValueList :
PropertyName : AssignmentExpression
PropertyNameAndValueList , PropertyName : AssignmentExpression

By: Lawrence

Lawrence — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 19:54:17 +0000

It’s not so much IE sucking hard, as it is JavaScript syntax sucking hard. No other language would expect a comma at the end of a list of arguments.

By: Evert Mouw

Evert Mouw — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 16:14:05 +0000

It’s understandable. If you don’t know what is inside your computer, if you do not know the difference between “internet” and “WWW” or “browser” and “internet”, then you use Internet Explorer. In all other cases, you download a better browser. But those other cases are rare; the vast masses do not know much about computers; they just want to read their mail.

By: Twitted by sethadam1

Twitted by sethadam1 — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 15:54:42 +0000

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