Re: "fighting it out between WGs" (was: inline CSS)

At 12:56 23.02.00 -0500, Braden N. McDaniel wrote:

>> COST OF CHANGE
>> 1. ID selectors are unreliable today. Removing style is only an option when
>> today's bunch of browsers are gone.
>
>ID selectors are more widely available than XHTML browsers are, so I don't
>see the relevance of this.

Not really. Today's browsers handle XHTML 1.0 without a glitch (to the
extent they handle HTML 4.0). So far I think they can handle XHTML 1.1 too.


>> 2. They would have to learn a new way of doing it. It shouldn't be too
>> hard, since they know .class {style}, #id {style} isn't too different. But
>> it is a switch from "Do *not* use #id (unreliable)" to "*Do* use #id".

>I don't buy this one. Web authors edge into using techniques that had
>previously been unreliable quite frequently. The very idea of using CSS
>at all is an example of this.

When something "finally" works, people tend to stick to it. Admittedly all
I am saying is that designers can be <del>pig-headed</del>conservative too.
It should be considered, as a resistance to change (change must have a
noticable advantage), but not an argument against superior proposals as such.
 

>> CONCEPTUAL MODEL
>> 4. Essentially the inline style divides styles into two categories, rules
>> in the head or preferably in a separate style sheet, exceptions inline.

>This is not a robust model, since it insists that all exceptions be
>persistent. Many, if not most, exceptions should be context-sensitive in
>how they behave.

>STYLE affords no means of naming the styles it introduces, thus all such
>styles are always "persistent". This is weak, as even "rules of one" as
>you describe often need to be dependent on aspects of the context in which
>they occur. So few persistent styles are immune to this that I am not sure
>they shouldn't be done away with altogether.

I am a bit unsure what you mean here, but yes, styles using the style
attribute (or #id selector) have no name or identity or semantic value (at
least normally). They are just there to present a particular point of code.
Even though most of the rendering is done by element/class rules, since you
only have to give properties once for all H2's in the entire site (at least
all documents of the same type), but you have to give every
exception/#id-rule individually, the "exceptions" may still overwhelm the
"rules".

Received on Wednesday, 23 February 2000 18:07:08 UTC