Re: Using preload for "async" CSS by changing `rel` trick

On Fri, Jan 12, 2018 at 11:43 PM, Anne van Kesteren <annevk@annevk.nl>
wrote:

> On Sat, Jan 13, 2018 at 7:39 AM, Ilya Grigorik <igrigorik@google.com>
> wrote:
> > On Fri, Jan 12, 2018 at 10:24 PM, Ben Maurer <ben.maurer@gmail.com>
> wrote:
> >>>> We use the fact that a resource has been downloaded to reveal content
> >>>> that depends on the JS/CSS that we are fetching. So if rel=preload
> told use
> >>>> a.css is available we'll insert HTML that uses a.css into the DOM.
> Even a
> >>>> single frame of the browser doing something like parsing the file
> would
> >>>> create a disruptive user experience.
> >>>
> >>> Right, I see. I think that's a great use case to raise against HTML
> spec
> >>> and see what the guidance is there — this is not preload specific, same
> >>> applies for resources coming from HTTP cache, serviceworker, etc.
> >>
> >> Is the correct formulation of the question "does the presence of a
> >> resource in the fetch group's response cache [which is what the preload
> spec
> >> says it adds the stylesheet to] guarantee that inserting a <link> with
> an
> >> href to that resource will synchronously apply to the DOM"
> >
> > I'll defer to Anne on this one. :-)
>
> Well, you shouldn't, since this is the complaint I've been making to
> you for a number of years now about the state of these features. You
> haven't defined them end-to-end, so the answer to these questions
> remains unclear.


Anne, what's missing for preload specifically? Happy to address it if we
can.

My observation here is that you can remove preload out of this question and
rephrase it as: "If I programmatically inject a <link rel=stylesheet> what
execution guarantees, if any, are provided?"


> Having said that, I don't think we'd want to give
> synchronous guarantees, and especially not that the resource is
> already parsed as CSS and has the relevant data structures created.
>

Is that true in practice today? Ben, have you checked if there are any WPT
tests for these behaviors?

ig


>
> --
> https://annevankesteren.nl/
>