Re: stability of root em unit spec

Håkon Wium Lie wrote:
>  > (in https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=472195), but David
>  > Baron has suggested that it might not be ready to implement, given
>  > that it was recently renamed from "rem" to "re" in the current
>  > editor's draft.
> 
> True, I've changed this in:
> 
>   http://dev.w3.org/csswg/css3-values/
> 
> I'm still working on this draft -- adding gr and fr units and such.
> The draft will be announced on this list when it's ready for review.
> 
> I will propose to change "rem" to "re" because:
> 
>   - all other length units are two-letter, it seems logical to follow
>     this scheme unless there's a good reason not to

I believe that it's only a coincidence that existing lengths are
two-letter. If some vendor is using two-letter assumption as a
performance hack, now would be a good time to say something. Otherwise,
I think that if three-letter variant is at all more clear, it should be
used instead.

>   - "rem" reminds me of the the old basic "remark" command. This is
>     not a very good reason, just something that pops up in my head
>     whenever I see it. I'm sure "re" will remind some people of email
>     messages.
> 
> What do people think -- should it be changed back?

Change it back, please. The fact that root em is quite similar to normal
em makes me think that the unit for root em should include the unit for
em in full.

If it needs to be two-letter, then I vote for "rm". It does not sound
like regular expression and according to Adam Twardoch em is already
commonly abbreviated as "m" instead of "e".


Back to the original issue: do you think that it's safe to implement
root em feature in Firefox or is there going to be major changes in the
future?

-- 
Mikko