- From: Matthew Wilcox <mail@matthewwilcox.com>
- Date: Fri, 18 May 2012 17:29:41 +0100
- To: Andy Davies <dajdavies@gmail.com>
- Cc: Julian Reschke <julian.reschke@gmx.de>, Maciej Stachowiak <mjs@apple.com>, Glenn Maynard <glenn@zewt.org>, Markus Ernst <derernst@gmx.ch>, whatwg@whatwg.org
You have to understand that the <picture> idea was not the result of idle thought. We went through a *lot* of thinking to reach that point, and so it's not actually an attachement to that idea so much as *we know* that idea inside out, what it does, what it doesn't, and why it's like that. We had thought about it from a lot of angles, thrown everything we could at it, and determined that <picture> was the most robust, familiar, and flexible solution out of half a dozen possibilities - each of which was under similar scrutiny. Then along comes srcset - which has not been subject to the same scrutiny by that group. So *of course* it's getting questioned hard, and *of course* <picture> is being held as answering the needs best. Until srcset has been properly discussed, inspected, picked apart, and subjected to the same level of scrutiny as <picture> was, it's not the trusted thing that <picture> is. Make no mistake; this is not a pride or attachment thing, this is a knowing the reasons thing. I personally don't think <picture> answers things well enough, nor do I think srcset does. Not for general use cases - but for specific one-off use cases, each has benefits. Personally I'm coming around to a refined version of the srcset idea rather than <picture> after some clear explanation. But, again, I only see it being appropriate for one-off use cases - singular special-case images within a page. I don't think anyone has yet come up with a good enough general purpose solution that avoids contaminating the mark-up with design-dependent properties which will all be invalid come a re-design - that to me is not acceptable. The closest I've seen that could possibly address that limitation is <meta> variables, but that has it's own issues and does not answer the same use-cases as srcset or <picture>. -Matt On 18 May 2012 16:40, Andy Davies <dajdavies@gmail.com> wrote: > On 18 May 2012 15:28, Glenn Maynard <glenn@zewt.org> wrote: >> >> Only if there are actual problems solved by doing so, which there don't >> seem to be. Instead, people seem to be hunting for excuses to use parts of >> the other proposal just for the sake of using them, not to solve any actual >> problem. ("That's not a good reason to do it? Hold on, let me try to come >> up with another...") >> > > Perhaps but I think the real problem may be this... > > The other proposals have been knocked around by various parties who > wanted to solve a problem, they had time to discuss it, digest it and > see how it grew to meet their needs. > > Now srcset was dropped on them as a surprise, they're still trying to > understand it, they keep being re-assured it meets their needs but > no-one who developed the srcset proposal has really come out and > explained to them how it meets their needs so they keep asking > questions... > > I wasn't involved in the picture discussion so have no particular > attachment to it, I think both picture and srcset have problems in > that they move breakpoints into the markup, srcset's "microsyntax" is > pretty horrible and the picture syntax has issues too. > > The thing that really astounds me about the responsive/adaptive images > hullabaloo is: > > The responsive image problem has been discussed for at least a year > with plenty of ideas / workarounds floated around (only got to look a > slidedecks form Mobilism, Breaking Development etc. for this) yet > WHATWG seemed pretty unaware of it. > > When WHATWG did decide to do something about it they just dropped it > on the people who wanted it by surprise without talking to them first > even just to say "this is our proposal, this is how we think it solves > your problem, what do you think?" > > I can understand why some of the "authors" are upset and I still thing > the srcset needs explaining clearly rather than them having to chew > through the spec. > > Cheers > > Andy
Received on Friday, 18 May 2012 16:30:16 UTC