[css3-images] Serialization

I've been privately talking with Sylvain about the fact that Image
Values specifies how to serialize everything defined in it, and the
fact that the general strategy employed there (in general, be verbose
and precise) conflicts with the approach Anne outlined in CSSOM (in
general, omit things when possible).  Sylvain was concerned about this
mismatch.

Additionally, he was concerned that my definitions deferred several
things to other specs (how to serialize <url>, <color>, <length>,
<bg-position>, etc.), but these weren't actually defined, which meant
that it was impossible to actually test the serializations.

As such, I'm about to mark the serialization chapter as informative
rather than normative.  While I feel that having consistency in
serialization is important, it's not more important to Image Values
than it is to any other spec.  If Image Values should be blocked until
the more basic serialization problems are resolved, then so should
*every* spec we produce.

I've listed serialization as a topic to discuss at the upcoming f2f,
so we can decide on the overall strategy, both what we should do
(terse or verbose) and where it should be defined (a central OM
module, or in each spec).

~TJ

Received on Thursday, 14 July 2011 00:39:38 UTC