Re: [cssom-view] New WD "CSSOM View Module"

Garrett Smith wrote:

> asking again: Why must BODY be an offsetParent? Why is it important to
> break what Internet Explorer really does? How does this help
> compatibility?

As a general principle, and regardless of the merits of such a change in 
this case, the tendency is for vendors to add features in a piecemeal 
way, for short term marketing reasons.  One of the jobs involved in 
standardisation is to take a broader view and adjust things so that the 
whole is simple and consistent (sometimes this may even result in 
additional local complexity in order to reduce the total complexity).

If you have a vendor with a near monopoly, who is very slow in tracking 
standards, or has not commitment at all to doing so, this can be a 
problem.  Normally, standards tend to benefit smaller companies.  The 
web is different from screws though, in that a web page has to fit all 
browser products, whereas a screw only has to fit the product it is used 
in, and manufacturers can decide that it is better to use the screw 
which has multiple sources than the one that can only come from the 
market leader.

Where standardisers are limited to documenting the market leader's de 
facto standard, they are not really doing their job; although it may 
well be that is the only pragmatic position to take.  However, that 
pragmatism should only be applied once it has been established that the 
loss will not be too great.

-- 
David Woolley
Emails are not formal business letters, whatever businesses may want.
RFC1855 says there should be an address here, but, in a world of spam,
that is no longer good advice, as archive address hiding may not work.

Received on Friday, 29 February 2008 08:57:45 UTC