- From: Ian Graham <igraham@smaug.java.utoronto.ca>
- Date: Wed, 11 Mar 1998 15:37:08 -0500 (EST)
- To: davidp@earthlink.net (David Perrell)
- Cc: www-style@w3.org
Having previously voiced my opinion that regular expressions might be useful in CSS, I find myself now less convinced. As David and others have pointed out, one of the advantgages of CSS (and, in principle, CSS2) is its simple, declarative nature. -- it can't do everything, but what it can do -- express basic rules for formatting and layout of content -- it does clearly. I now tend to think that adding regex stuff would simply cloud this simplicity, and make the whole thing harder to use. I suspect that regular expression mechanisms, and other, more sophisticated coding, are best left to languages such as DSSSL or XSL -- which, in principle, could spit out appropriate CSS rules when a document is assembled for transmission to a browser. This assumes, of course, that there can be a clean-ish separation between starting markup, DSSSL/XSL, CSS and "rendered" markup. I do not know if that is always (or even often) true. Ian David Perrell wrote: > Bert Bos wrote: > > >Everybody's opinion wanted! > > Regexps in CSS: much needed very seldom by very few. > > When I first became a CSS 'believer', it seemed to me that the primary > goal should be a consistent property-based styling language that would > simplify both markup and UA design. Considering the unfinished state of > basic work in the CSS2 spec (e.g. tables) and the depressing state of UA > support for even the basic CSS1 spec, I think any serious consideration > of regexps is premature. The basic foundation still needs a lot of work. > > Although there's obviously a need for programmatic styling, I thought it > was a foregone conclusion CSS wouldn't be the means. > > David Perrell > >
Received on Wednesday, 11 March 1998 15:38:12 UTC