We are where we are.... but how did we get here?

Hi,
I appreciate I've got to the discussion late... I believe CSS2.1 was started
around 1998.

I've been searching the W3C website for explanations and reasons why we are
where we are. Are the facts and explanations available or is it all lost in
the mists of time and buried in archives?

For example I would love someone to write an explanation on the W3C website
behind the box model the W3C choose to adopted?
Why is a second pass unworkable? (computing power has increased
significantly since 1998... I can play Doom on my phone :-)
Why can't I style a div to align centre using align:center but instead have
to use margin-left:auto; margin-right:auto? 

It very frustrating as someone who has to work with these standards every
day. They are not intuitive and overly complex. I came here to try and
understand.

I went to the @media2005 conference in London last month and a lot of people
I spoke to were critical of the CSS WG. The W3C were the butt of more jokes
than IE!?! As most of the delegates were standards and CSS converts the W3C
should realise that as more people get involved in coding correctly, the
more people are gonna start asking the same questions over and over again.
And requesting the same "impossible" features that would make our lives
easier over and over again.

Do you know of anywhere I can find the published answers to satisfy me?

Regards
Paul

-----Original Message-----
From: www-style-request@w3.org [mailto:www-style-request@w3.org] On Behalf
Of Laurens Holst


As I understand the CSS WG has likely heard solutions like this being 
proposed many times, so in order not to have the same discussion again 
every couple of months they just don't have it at all.

I'm getting a bit tired of the 'the CSS WG is blind to solutions' or 
'everything is fundamentally flawd'-like comments. That's not a 
constructive way to work. There are technical reasons behind the limits 
of CSS which can't just be waved away.

Received on Wednesday, 29 June 2005 14:51:41 UTC