Re: [csswg-drafts] Let’s Define CSS 4 (#4770)

Having "releases" probably would make the discoverability of new features easier, at least for people who are not that deep into CSS. Having said that, I personally mostly agree with [rachelandrew's comment](https://github.com/w3c/csswg-drafts/issues/4770#issuecomment-585391852). I think that better explaining material would help more.

With the existing CSS Snapshots (e.g. [CSS Snapshot 2020](https://drafts.csswg.org/css-2020/)), there is already some "versioning". But most people probably do not read those specifications and are more interested in what actually changed in between those snapshots. To make those more visible, I envision a document similar to release notes. But it might go more into the direction of "CSS Recommendations", i.e. it includes only features whose (as [zeldman suggested](https://github.com/w3c/csswg-drafts/issues/4770#issuecomment-585841895)) "spec was stabilized when at least two major implementations supported it". For example, "CSS Recommendations 2020" might include all new specs since the previous "Recommendation" that have at least two major implementations. In addition to that, some things have to be explained in very simple terms:

* One very important aspect in my opinion is to make it crystal clear that browsers do not implement *versions* of the specifications. Not for ECMAScript, not for HTML, and not for CSS. Instead they implement individual *features*.

* Two implementations is not enough for most websites anyway. Based on the data of caniuse (or similar), there should be an easy overview of exactly how many and which browser support those specs individually.

So essentially such a document goes into the direction of CSS IV as mentioned by [davidfitzgibbon](https://github.com/w3c/csswg-drafts/issues/4770#issuecomment-589300453) but with more emphasis on the spec's stability and adoption.

I put "Recommendation" in quotes as I'm not sure this would a good name. And I know that this is exactly what rachelandrews argued against. Maybe such a document could be published outside of the official CSSWG channels (maybe on MDN?). But then it might also lose some of its marketing goal.

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Off topic:

@davatron5000 @rickgregory

> Meanwhile, JavaScript has seen a huge explosion in velocity and has published the following standards since 2015: ES6, ES2015, ES2016, ES2017, ES2018, ES.Next, ES7, ES8, and ES9.

That is not true (or at least very misleading). As of ES6, new ECMAScript specs were released in a yearly schedule (i.e. there is *one* new version each year). Since 2015 they released ES6 (=ES2015), ES2016 (=ES7), ES2017 (=ES8), ES2018 (=ES9), and ES2019 (=ES10). ES.Next is not a standard but a working draft.

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Received on Friday, 21 February 2020 09:55:18 UTC