What's the difference between 'state' and 'status' in function name?

readyState

statusText

on开发者_如何学运维readystatechange

window.status

What's the difference between 'state' and 'status' in English ?

Not much. I would tend to say state refers to more detailed information, but that's subjective.

For these:

XMLHttpRequest.readyState - one of 5 possible states for a request
XMLHttpRequest.statusText - The text equivalent of the HTTP response status (e.g. "200 OK")
XMLHttpRequest.onreadystatechange - function to call when readyState changes
window.status - status bar text (typically bottom left of window)

They are quite similar, as they both signify the current properties of something. There is however a bit of a difference in how they are used:

A state is usually a single propery with some specific possible values. The readyState for example will cycle through some specific predefined values when a page loads.

The status is usually a collection of properties, or a description of them. The window.status property for example is just the text that is displayed in the status bar, and that can descibe any aspect of the content.

In computing there is not much difference between the two, and they can be used interchangeably.

See status and state on wikipedia (the computing sections) - not much of a difference, and the status article even points to state articles.

status in window.status points to the status bar of the browser. In pure English though, i don't see much difference between state and status.

Just a humble tought: It could help thinking to readyState in a finite state machine fashion. I mean, when a page loads, It goes from a state to another (and not from a status to another status). Maybe this explain why they have decided to call It state.