Re: Suggestion for generic CSS vendor prefix

On Wed, Mar 24, 2010 at 1:07 PM, Aryeh Gregor <Simetrical+w3c@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Mon, Mar 22, 2010 at 5:21 PM, Robert O'Callahan <robert@ocallahan.org> wrote:
>> If there is a problem we need to solve here, it's that for some properties
>> there's a long gap between the syntax and behavior freezing and the spec
>> going into CR, at which time unprefixed implementations are officially
>> allowed. Fixing that requires a change in policy and/or process.
>
> So does anyone have a specific proposal on how to fix this?  What
> would be an appropriate procedure to freeze syntax for a given
> property and allow unprefixed use?  There have been some fairly
> specific suggestions from the "introduce a shared prefix" camp, but no
> one has come up with an actual proposal for dropping prefixes sooner
> (that I've seen).  This is a real problem, and a solution is needed.

My suggestion is to create a CSS Mixins spec, and use that to fix the
issue when you really want to use a widely-implemented property that's
not in a CR spec yet.

That would solve this issue neatly, without any hand-wringing over
whether a property is 'mature' or not at any particular time, plus a
number of other issues besides.  The only downside is, well, it's
another spec.  (I volunteer to write it, though.)

~TJ