Re: [css-variables] How to spec the OM for vars?

On Tue, Sep 4, 2012 at 8:47 AM, Boris Zbarsky <bzbarsky@mit.edu> wrote:
> On 9/4/12 11:44 AM, Tab Atkins Jr. wrote:
>> Are you thinking we should maybe
>> avoid it because people won't catch the error, and thus their pages
>> will break in IE8?
>
> Yes.  Though I guess they'll be kinda broken there anyway if they're using
> CSS variables....  But then it starts to depend on whether the CSS variables
> are being used for progressive enhancement kind of things or basic
> functionality.

Variables are pretty much intended to be used for basic functionality.
 They're a bedrock tech - if you try and progressively enhance up to
them, you've pretty much eliminated the entire reason for using them
in the first place.  They're still essentially a rewriting mechanism
that helps you author your stylesheet, even though they're technically
processed later than parse time.


>> I don't see why "this page breaks in an older
>> (possibly unmaintained?) browser" would have any force for you, a
>> Firefox dev. ^_^
>
> Because I care about users, not just Firefox?  ;)

Bah, idealist. ^_^  But yeah, if you're using variables, you don't
expect your pages to work at all outside of the supporting browsers.
The percentage of authors who will write in fallbacks for every
variable use will be vanishingly small, I'm sure.  One more minor
point of breakage when you try to use a JS API that isn't supported
either isn't very significant.

~TJ

Received on Tuesday, 4 September 2012 16:05:09 UTC