[Bug 10740] New: encourage use of SHARED (vendor) prefixes: experimental--feature

http://www.w3.org/Bugs/Public/show_bug.cgi?id=10740

           Summary: encourage use of SHARED (vendor) prefixes:
                    experimental--feature
           Product: HTML WG
           Version: unspecified
          Platform: PC
               URL: http://dev.w3.org/html5/spec/infrastructure#extensibil
                    ity
        OS/Version: All
            Status: NEW
          Severity: normal
          Priority: P3
         Component: HTML5 spec (editor: Ian Hickson)
        AssignedTo: ian@hixie.ch
        ReportedBy: xn--mlform-iua@xn--mlform-iua.no
         QAContact: public-html-bugzilla@w3.org
                CC: mike@w3.org, public-html-wg-issue-tracking@w3.org,
                    public-html@w3.org


The vendor--feature (earlier: _vendor-feature) is modelled after how CSS vendor
prefixes works, see the initial bug description:
http://www.w3.org/Bugs/Public/show_bug.cgi?id=9239#c0  Spec says:

]] New element names should not be created. Using attributes for such
extensions exclusively allows extensions from multiple vendors to co-exist on
the same element, [[

However multiple prefixes, such as multiple CSS prefixes, are difficult for
authors to handle. And the more vendors there are, the more difficult is it.
E.g consider this mess, which basically seeks to implement the same "foo"
property: 

     selector { -abc-foo:value; -bar-foo:value; -lorem-foo:value, foo:value; }

In addition to being messy, the author also isn't guaranteed that  each
"prefix--foo" is intended to be an experimental version of the same "foo"
feature. 

For an author, it would be a huge simplification and security if instead he/she
could do something like this:

     selector { -experimental-foo:value;  foo:value; }

Not only is this simpler: In addition, authors which use "-experimental-"
instead of "-vendor-"  could be have a higher degree of certainty that the
vendors have intended to implement the very same feature and also more reason
to assume that the feature is undergoing specification.

Such an -experimental- prefix could be considered an alias for -vendorprefix-.
Thus if an author only wants to target a particular vendor, he/she could use
the prefix of that particular vendor instead of using the -experimental-
prefix. 

Thus, if HTML5 implent vendor prefixes as 'vendor--feature', then I propose
that there should also be an "experimental--" prefix. And, if a group of
related vendors want to co-operate on the use of their own experimental prefix,
they should also be able to register their own "experimentalxyz--" prefix.

The use of such shared prefixes should be encouraged through the following
changes in the spec:

a) define a global prefix for experimentation, e.g. "experimental--"
b) consider if the global "experimental--" (and possibly other shared prefixes)
only should caus a warning (wheras "real" vendor prefixes should couse an
error)
c) enable related vendors to register both shared vendor prefixes as well as
proprietary vendor prefixes.

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Received on Saturday, 25 September 2010 22:57:10 UTC