Re: Another view (sorry) on XBL and behaviours

Apologies I was unsubscribed so it wasn't until Tim Berners-Lee emailed me
(and list) today, that I realized to come back here.  There will be a
response to TBL later (I am trying to speak with him on phone first).  I
will just say that TBL and I agree.  I think he misunderstood (or just was
not referred to important aspects of) my point in an important way, and I
want to sort that out with him before posting a reply to his points.  I
strongly urge anatgonists to reserve final judgement until TBL fully
understands my position.

As for the two examples provided by John and Jim regarding my endless loop
example[3] of what bad happens when merging CSS and XBL, John and Jim are
imo missing the point of [1].

The point is that in both John and Jim's examples below, the special cases
for dealing with the problems is localized to either scripting or to CSS,
but not to 3+ different layers.  If a script is bad, it can be disabled
without making the entire document invalid (in many cases).  If CSS has to
ignore a special case of _style_, then it will not be turning off the
entire semantic implementation (the XBL code) of markup.

The separation of _style_ (presentation) from markup is crucial
orthogonality.  Once you destroy that orthogonality then you have
effectively combined markup and style again (going backwards in web history).

There is nothing wrong with making CSS-like selectors for events.  That is
what I would prefer to see for styling "behavior".  But using CSS-like
selectors for the entire implementation of a markup element, is ruining the
orthogonality of markup.

Again, I will repeat that I am not against creating new tags and
implementing them in UAs (e.g. XUL).  And I am not against the "authority"
of specifications.  Any one who paints me into opposite extremes, doesn't
understand my argument, and they need to read more carefully my "Shelby's
Final Position Paper on XBL"[2] and think more deeply about it and it's
real meaning.


> Jim Dabel wrote:
> <script type="text/javascript">
> while(1);
> </script>

> John Lewis wrote:
> code{font-size:2em}
> code:hover{font-size:1em} 



[1] http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-style/2003Jan/0184.html

[2] http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-style/2003Jan/0147.html

[3] http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-style/2003Jan/0186.html

-Shelby Moore

Received on Tuesday, 7 January 2003 11:28:14 UTC