Creation of a new Ecma Technical Committee, TC55 “Web-interoperable server runtimes”
Authors: Luca Casonato (Deno, WinterCG co-chair, Ecma TC55 co-chair), Mike Smith (W3C staff, liaison to Ecma) and Daniel Ehrenberg (Bloomberg, Ecma President)
The W3C Web Interoperable Runtimes Community Group (“WinterCG”) and Ecma International (the organization which standardizes ECMAScript, also known as JavaScript) have collaborated to create a new Ecma Technical Committee ,TC55 – Web-interoperable server runtimes, dubbed “WinterTC”, for the development of a common web-aligned API surface for server-side JavaScript runtimes like Node.js, Deno and Cloudflare Workers.
Developers these days are increasingly working “full-stack”, writing code for the client side (often web browsers) and the server side (often based on JavaScript). Reusing web platform APIs reduces developers’ cognitive load and allows some logic to be shared between client and server, or easily migrated from one to the other. This sharing is increasingly employed in technologies like server-side rendering (SSR) and server actions.
For the past two years, the W3C Web Interoperable Runtimes Community Group (“WinterCG”) has been working to strengthen the convergence of server JavaScript runtimes with the web platform by defining a common base for JavaScript in web-interoperable server environments.
WinterCG’s most prominent work item is the “minimum common API”, which defines the subset of the web platform to be supported across all web-interoperable server environments. Further, WinterCG drives development on the web platform itself, as implemented in browsers, e.g., Response.json and AsyncContext. WinterCG serves as a place to gather requirements from server environments, to be solved for and standardized in other existing standards venues, including Ecma International’s TC39, WHATWG and various W3C Working Groups, when server and browser needs to align.
After incubating the “minimum common API” in WinterCG, the WinterCG participants decided to charter an Ecma Technical Committee, TC55 – Web-interoperable server runtimes, (“WinterTC”), which will host the effort to standardize this API. The cooperation between venues builds off of decades of experience collaborating between W3C and Ecma International on ECMAScript (a.k.a. JavaScript) and the web platform.
Once Ecma TC55/WinterTC is set up fully, all WinterCG work will move there and the existing community group will close. WinterTC’s work with W3C is not over though: “We still have a lot of work to do”, says Luca Casonato, previously co-chair of WinterCG and now co-chair of Ecma TC55/WinterTC. “W3C is very central to the web platform, and a lot of the work from WinterCG touches existing web platform APIs. This means that Ecma TC55 participants and W3C will continue to work together closely.”
Luca continues: “The W3C Community Group programme enabled us to start work on unifying server side and web browser JavaScript very quickly. It is a great programme that I can recommend to anyone in a similar position to ours. We are very grateful to W3C for providing us with such an excellent home over the last couple years.”
We encourage participation between W3C members and Ecma TC55 to further the development of a unified “full-stack” platform incorporating JavaScript and web technologies, across web servers and clients.
“We are glad to see this work proceed from a W3C Community Group,” said Philippe Le Hégaret, W3C Strategy and Project Lead. “Congratulations to the Winter Community Group on chartering Ecma Technical Committee, TC55. We look forward to future collaborations with the W3C WebAppSec (WebCrypto API), WebApps (FileAPI), WebPerf (HR-TIME) and WebAssembly (WASM-*) Working Groups, to effectively address and meet the needs of the community.”
“Ecma is pleased to announce the formation of TC55 (Web-interoperable server runtimes), a collaborative effort with W3C that reflects our commitment to serving the community,” said Samina Husain, Ecma International Secretary General. “I commend W3C WinterCG for their dedication and foundational contributions, which have laid the groundwork for this important new technical committee in Ecma.”
Learn more about WinterTC at https://wintertc.org and announcements from Igalia and Deno.
Please contact Samina Husain, Secretary General of Ecma International at media@ecma-international.org for any further questions.