Re: Rename 'd' property

On 8 February 2016 at 16:00, Chris Lilley <chris@w3.org> wrote:

> Hello Sebastian,
>
> Monday, February 8, 2016, 9:38:39 AM, you wrote:
>
>
> Hi all,
>
> https://www.w3.org/2016/02/03-svg-irc.html#T23-25-17 is talking about the
> 'd' CSS property as a reflection of the 'd' attribute.
>
> Though that name is really inexpressive.
>
> It is. The attribute was originally called "data" but was shortened to "d"
> because it is the most common attribute in SVG. A similar proposal to
> shortn "path" element name to "p" was not adopted :)
>

I see. Thank you for the background info on that.


> I agree it is a bit terse as a property name. On the other hand, having a
> 1:1 mapping between the names and definitions of properties and
> presentation attributes can be helpful for authoring.
>

Sure, that's why my second suggested solution was to create an alias for
it, which could be for the CSS property as well as for the attribute.


> So I wonder, whether it could be renamed to something more meaningful like
> 'path' when porting it to CSS (or at least introduce it as an alias for
> 'd').
> I can see advantages and disadvantages.
>

Can you elaborate on this, please? The advantages I see are better
understandability and conformance with the other CSS properties. A
disadvantage is that usage will diverge, so people may need to learn that
they are aliases. Though they already have to do that, anyway, as mentioned
by Kari.
Do you see other advantages or disadvantages?

Sebastian