• Feature Name: (fill me in with a unique ident, my-awesome-feature)
  • Start Date: (fill me in with today's date, YYYY-MM-DD)
  • RFC PR: tc39/test262#0000

Summary

One paragraph explanation of the feature.

Motivation

Why are we doing this? What use cases does it support? What is the expected outcome?

Guide-level explanation

Explain the proposal from the point of view of whichever of test262's stakeholders (test writers, test suite consumers, proposal writers, test262 maintainers) is going to be affected by it. Making lots of use of examples is encouraged.

For RFCs oriented towards the tests and test harness, this section should focus on how stakeholders should think about the change, and give examples of its concrete impact. For policy RFCs, this section should provide an example-driven introduction to the policy, and explain its impact in concrete terms.

Reference-level explanation

This is the technical portion of the RFC. Explain the design in sufficient detail that:

  • Its interaction with other features is clear.
  • It is reasonably clear how the feature would be implemented.
  • Corner cases are dissected by example.

The section should return to the examples given in the previous section, and explain more fully how the detailed proposal makes those examples work.

Drawbacks

Why should we not do this?

Rationale and alternatives

  • Why is this design the best in the space of possible designs?
  • What other designs have been considered and what is the rationale for not choosing them?
  • What is the impact of not doing this?

Prior art

Discuss prior art, both the good and the bad, in relation to this proposal. A few examples of what this can include are:

  • For test harness proposals: Does this feature exist in other test harnesses and what experience have their community had? Is the feature generally considered a net positive?
  • For policy proposals: Is this done by some other community and what were their experiences with it?

This section is intended to encourage you as an author to think about the lessons from other similar features elsewhere, and provide readers of your RFC with a fuller picture. If there is no prior art, that is fine — your ideas are interesting to us whether they are brand new or if it is an adaptation from elsewhere.

Note that while precedent set elsewhere is some motivation, it does not on its own motivate an RFC. Please also take into consideration that test262 sometimes intentionally diverges from common test conventions, due to its unique requirements.

Unresolved questions

  • What parts of the design do you expect to resolve through the RFC process before this gets merged?
  • What parts of the design do you expect to resolve through the implementation of this feature?
  • What related issues do you consider out of scope for this RFC that could be addressed in the future independently of the solution that comes out of this RFC?

Future possibilities

Think about what the natural extension and evolution of your proposal would be and how it would affect the project as a whole in a holistic way. Try to use this section as a tool to more fully consider all possible interactions with the project in your proposal. Also consider how this all fits into the roadmap for the project.

This is also a good place to “dump ideas”, if they are out of scope for the RFC you are writing but otherwise related.

If you have tried and cannot think of any future possibilities, you may simply state that you cannot think of anything.

Note that having something written down in the future-possibilities section is not a reason to accept the current or a future RFC; such notes should be in the section on motivation or rationale in this or subsequent RFCs. The section merely provides additional information.