(It isn't clear that this needs an "intent" email but better to err on side of being too clear.)
Primary eng
Spec
Summary
The old spec only had XMLHttpRequestException for about a year (during 2007) and WebKit is the only browser to implement this interface. The XHR spec says to throw DOMExceptions objects instead and that is what other browsers do.
Motivation
Clean up our surface area as well as increase compatibility.
Compatibility Risk
Very low. Due to differences in the interface code on the open we do not check what kind of errors are thrown from an XHR, instead they rely on the status and the statusText of the XHR object.
Apple was opposed to this change inside WebKit because of backwards compatibility with their ObjectiveC bindings. They also saw no value in removing unused interfaces.
Bug
https://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=229395
Patch
https://codereview.chromium.org/14200030
Row on feature dashboard?
No. Minor change
Requesting approval to ship?
Yes.
This seems pretty reasonable; anything that cleans up our exception code is welcome. :)
Would you mind linking to the WebKit discussion for completeness?
-mike
Would you mind linking to the WebKit discussion for completeness?