Re: [CSS21] Lack of version control for content

Chris Lilley wrote:
> Hello ,
> 
> This comment is sent from both the CDF WG and the SVG WG.
> 
>   Thus, while it is not the case that a CSS2 stylesheet is necessarily
>   forwards-compatible with CSS 2.1, it is the case that a stylesheet
>   restricting itself to CSS 2.1 features is more likely to find a
>   compliant user agent today and to preserve forwards compatibility in
>   the future. While breaking forward compatibility is not desirable, we
>   believe the advantages to the revisions in CSS 2.1 are worthwhile.
>   http://www.w3.org/TR/2005/WD-CSS21-20050613/about.html#q1
> 
> Experience with the CSS validator shows that the lack of version
> identification is a significant problem for managing CSS content; there
> is no way to indicate to which of the multiple, changing, overlapping
> versions of CSS the stye sheet is attempting to comply. As the quoted
> section illustrates, there are incompatibilities between versions.
> 
> The SVG WG requests that CSS 2.1 align itself with the Architecture of
> the World Wide Web
> 
>    A data format specification SHOULD provide for version information.
>    http://www.w3.org/TR/webarch/#ext-version
> 
> As an example, @version 2.1; would be one method. Unknown at-rules are
> ignored by compliant parsers.

This issue was discussed at the previous F2F and I believe it was
concluded that CSS does not need to embed version information. Instead,
the validator software should allow for multiple profiles, including
tailored ones based on the actual state of relevant implementations
rather than less relevant state of version numbers. This would be much
more useful to authors. Daniel Glazman has some concerns about authoring
software, however, and reserialization.

~fantasai

Received on Thursday, 25 August 2005 19:26:21 UTC