Re: User Agents Do Not Implement Absolute Length Units, Places Responsive Design in Jeopardy

On Fri, Oct 21, 2011 at 10:23 AM, Tab Atkins Jr. <jackalmage@gmail.com>wrote:

> On Thu, Oct 20, 2011 at 2:16 PM, Boris Zbarsky <bzbarsky@mit.edu> wrote:
>
> > If your real issue with #1 is conversions, then we could introduce "true"
> > parallels of all the physical units.  But are there actually use cases
> for
> > using true physical "pt", say?
>
> Apparently there are use-cases for true physical "in", given Brian's
> previous emails.


I'm not convinced of those use-cases. As far as I can tell, the presented
use-case is "map physical screen sizes to device categories using some
questionable assumptions, to enable device-specific style sheets". That's
not really a use-case; physical screen sizes are not a reliable way to
categorize devices; and targeting style sheets to specific devices is
probably unwise anyway.

If "in" and "mm" are both useful, I would assume
> that "cm" is useful too.  And at that point it would be less confusing
> to just do all the physical units for consistency.
>

The use-cases for always-physical units are quite limited; they involve
sizing screen elements to match some physical object. mozmm is proving
perfectly adequate for sizing touch elements. I don't think we need to add
any more physical units until they're proven needed.

Rob
-- 
"If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in
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we make him out to be a liar and his word is not in us." [1 John 1:8-10]