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

Hello! Front-end developer here who actively builds websites and works with CSS every day. I also published a book on advanced "CSS3" via Wiley in 2013.

I think the general concept here is absolutely a winning one. People will be falling over themselves to make CSS4 courses, publishers will be clamouring to release CSS4 books, and it will create a buzz that makes developers feel a sense of needing to get across it all. And the end result will be greater coverage, greater visibility and greater uptake for new CSS features.

We've literally already seen this pattern with CSS3, and I've no reason to think it would be different now. As many have mentioned already, naming matters and branding matters. Even if it's not "real", the impact in community uptake will be very real.

I echo the sentiments from others who have said that there's a general perception that CSS these days isn't something that needs to be kept on top of. People won't invest the time to look into a new pseudo-class, but if recruiters are listing CSS4 as a requirement, they will get that base covered.

As someone who covered CSS3 extensively at the time, I don't think 'production-readiness' needs to be a major consideration with CSS4. While I understand Rachel Andrew's points, the various modules under the CSS3 umbrella had very varying degrees of support at the time, and it seemed to be generally understood that some features had good support and some didn't yet.

My main concern at the moment is I think you'll need to be careful about what goes into the CSS4 bucket. Looking at [this list](https://github.com/orgs/CSS-Next/projects/1/views/2), much of the proposed CSS4 features were, in my experience, covered back when CSS3 was the catch-all term. As I mentioned, I think CSS4 has the potential to hit the web dev scene quite hard, and if people then realise it's just Flexbox, Grid and other already mainstream features, it may be somewhat underwhelming and also a bit confusing. I may be wrong on this but this is my gut feeling.

To conclude, I personally think this is most definitely the way forward for CSS and am very excited about seeing this come to fruition! 😄 

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Received on Friday, 8 March 2024 14:00:29 UTC