Re: Backwards compatibility of new selectors (was: Color models and CSS2 in general)

> Could you elaborate on the problem as you see it?

As I see it, CSS is attempting to become a much more general style sheet
language and allow the sorts of things which were not in the original
intent.  Mostly I'm looking at the selector stuff becoming much more complex
and which looks like it might demand a rigorous understanding of the DOM
(possibly quite fair).  DSSSL/XSL has inhabited that space for quite awhile,
allowing arbitrary selections to apply properties to.  So this seems like
an overlap and a place to be careful in terms of keeping functionality
between the two aligned.

Another area of overlap is the printing extension, which doesn't appear to
have enough richness to make many people happy (I haven't looked through
the CSS2 spec for this stuff yet, so forgive me if that's farther along).
Again, this is an area which was well thought out in DSSSL.

It does make me wonder whether it is better to extend CSS beyond a point,
or put more work into DSSSL/XSL.

CSS could take a different tack and approach the issue in a less overlapping
direction.  For example: there's enough functionality (in terms of selectors)
in CSS1 to get arbitrary granularity already.  It isn't enough to base a
browser's internal formatting on,  but there's enough for the author to 
control things. CSS2 could focus more on display abilities, animation,
or other dynamic properties and leave the more complex flow objects to DSSSL.
The aural style sheets are another area in that sort of direction.

Anyway,  some not terribly organized thoughts on the subject.

D
.

Received on Thursday, 4 December 1997 12:02:29 UTC