Re: WebKit now supports CSS Variables

Simetrical wrote:
...
> There *should be* nothing in software default CSS that admins
> of a specific installation can't change.  Likewise, there *should be*
> nothing in a site-wide stylesheet that a particular section can't
> change.  Constants give flexibility where you *don't* need or want it,
> in the highest and most general layers, and take it away where you do,
> at the most specific level.

I am not sure I understand your concerns.

"admins" will be the first people who will benefit from @const.

They will define constants. Developers will use them.
Constants cannot be overwritten. So "admins" can sleep calmly.

In CSS you can overwrite everything. Already.
@const gives CSS new feature - ability to define
things that cannot be overwritten. So you have
more choices: you can use constness and/or you can use variability.
That in principle creates more design possibilities including
modularity through parametrization.

...

> 
>> For @conts, there is a big benefit of NOT
>> allowing any stop along the line to change the values. It is the same reason
>> programmers sometimes use constants instead of variables, and why they are
>> usually at the beginning of the program code.
> 
> I know of multiple programming languages (Python, bash) with no
> concept of constants at all.  I know of none with no concept of
> variables.  Language-enforced constants are totally unnecessary for
> programming, and probably they only exist because in compiled
> languages they can be more easily optimized than variables which
> happen not to change.  None of the scenarios you've given have shown
> any benefit that I can see from unchangeable constants -- assuming
> that local stylesheets come after more global ones, which they
> generally do because of how CSS has worked to date.
> 

And I know programming languages that support modularity so
have constants. One of them is a next version of JavaScript:
http://www.ecmascript.org/es4/spec/overview.pdf by the way.

And by the way you should refresh your Python knowledge.
You can define immutable class attribute that is exactly 'const'
or 'final' if you know Java.

-- 
Andrew Fedoniouk.

http://terrainformatica.com