What is a prolyfill?

Asked

Viewed 60 times

2

We already know what a polyfill (What is Polyfill?), but what is a prolyfill? Is there any relationship between him and himself polyfill, since the names are so similar?

I saw the term by chance in this comment and saw that there are even some references to it on the internet, but it is little used. The term is little used or is its implementation that little common?

terminology

  • I came hot to close as dup :D

  • 1

    @Maniero So circulate... pass straight...

1 answer

2


The term is new to me, but there seems to be a "canonical information" simple about her so I’ll answer up because I know it’s only to have useful content here.

It’s basically the same as the polyfill, but the other way around. While the term already enshrined is in charge of providing implementations that make your code compatible with old mechanisms that do not yet have a certain capacity, the prolyfill does the same with mechanisms that do not yet exist and allow you to test something that may exist. This is useful to demonstrate how it would be if it were implemented to serve as a basis as a proposal for novelty in web technology or to test something that has already been proposed.

I find the term unnecessary and even ill thought, so much so that now they are calling it polyfill speculative, therefore it does not cease to be a polyfill And basically it’s the same thing, it’s used the same way, it has the same advantages, the only difference is that it can become useless easily because it might not be implemented in this way. Or even never to be implemented, so they have only different goals. Its only utility is to give people a chance to test a possible way that would work, it’s useful more for the implementers than for normal users of technologies, I wouldn’t worry too much about it, except out of curiosity or if you are entering the world of implementers of these technologies, especially web.

Example. By research the term seems to be used almost exclusively there :D

  • It’s basically a "look how cool it was" and if it works eventually become part of the official implementation?

  • It could be that, so even one start proposal, and can be "looks like it will be when the current proposal is implemented by someone, test and give feedback to help the implementers and authors of the proposal that has not yet been finalized".

Browser other questions tagged terminology

You are not signed in. Login or sign up in order to post.