Re: [Selectors] Clarify when universal selector may be omitted

fantasai On 09-10-20 21.41:

> Leif Halvard Silli wrote:
>> fantasai On 09-10-20 04.20:
>>    
>>> http://dev.w3.org/cvsweb/csswg/selectors3/Overview.html.diff?r1=1.46&r2=1.47&f=h 
>>>
>>> Please let me know if this addresses your comments.
>> Nits: you wrote "an an" instead of "an" (first sentence).
> 
> Fixed. Thanks.
> 
>> Proposal/Comment
>>
>> In short, I suggest that the last sentence should start like this (my 
>> changes in UPPERCASE):
>>
>>    <p>If a universal selector represented by THE <code>*</code> ONLY 
>> (THAT IS: without a namespace prefix) is not immediately followed by a 
>> pseudo-element AND ALSO IS NOT the only component IN a sequence of 
>> simple selectors, then [ ... etc]
>>
>> Background/Explanations
>>
>> ...
> 
> I've inserted "i.e." inside the parentheses.


Good.

> I decline to make the other
> changes, as I feel the sentence is adequately clear as-is and I don't
> find the proposed change to be a noticeable improvement, if any.


I continue to believe that this sentence is suboptimal and 
unclear. But there are certainly many ways to improve it.

The very minimum could be to call out the "not": 
<strong>not</strong>. (This to make up for the, IMHO, quite 
unexpected use of a "If" sentence to leads up to a "is not" 
condition (since you have not given the positive "If *is*" 
variant in any preceding example).

The whole sentence feels like it should have started with "Except 
when" or "Unless the": "Except when/Unless the '*' is the only 
component [etc] or immediately followed by a pseudo-element, then 
[etc]."

As it is, the reader must himself/herself mentally insert a "not" 
after the second "is". It could in fact be better to skip the 
second "is" -  then it becomes clear that the "is not" is valid 
here also.
-- 
leif halvard silli