What is the difference between a shim and a polyfill?

terminology naming vocabulary polyfills shim
Domenic picture Domenic · Jul 6, 2011 · Viewed 86.1k times · Source

Both seem to be used in web development circles, see e.g. HTML5 Cross Browser Polyfills, which says:

So here we're collecting all the shims, fallbacks, and polyfills...

Or, there's the es5-shim project.

In my current project we're using a number of these, and I want to stick them all in the same directory. So, what should I call this directory---shims, or polyfills?

Answer

Arsalan Ahmed picture Arsalan Ahmed · Jul 12, 2011

  • A shim is any piece of code that performs interception of an API call and provides a layer of abstraction. It isn't necessarily restricted to a web application or HTML5/CSS3.

  • A polyfill is a type of shim that retrofits legacy browsers with modern HTML5/CSS3 features usually using Javascript or Flash.

Answering your specific question, call your directory shims if you want to keep the directory generic.

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