Re: [csswg-drafts] [css-fonts] Why is there no font-weight `light`? (#4048)

I somehow still think that numbers are very unreadable, especially to newcomers. Seeing a `font-weight: 600` declaration somewhere without knowing the exact "boldness" mappings basically gives no information to the reader, making the DX pretty bad. I know that numbers are much more precise and "absolute-ish", but I couln't we just add extra keywords as simple aliases of numbers, e.g.
- `thin` = 100
- `extralight` = 200
- `light` = 300
- `medium` = 500
- `semibold` = 600
- `extrabold` = 800
- `heavy` = 900

Font weights like 600 are often used because 700, especially with big text, seems "too bold" in many fonts. Usually, as a simple website designer without any special typographic background, you just want the font to be e.g. "not quite as bold as with the `bold` keyword", i.e. 600. The CSS declaration `font-weight: semibold` would directly imply that the font has a – well – semibold weight, instead of `font-weight: 600`, which is just an arbitrary number to most people. Anyone who wants to use the precise typographic numbers 1-999 could still do that, but the "normal", "average" web developer would have a more intuitive and readable alternative.

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Received on Monday, 31 July 2023 09:05:25 UTC