Re: [flex-units] unit abbreviations and the flex()

Speaking as an author who will almost certainly be using flexes...

While the asterisk notation does make a fair amount of sense, especially to
authors who are familiar with it from HTML, the fact that * is already an
operator in calc() is a really strong argument against it, I think.

As for the min-width/max-width/starting-width flex notations[1], I'd prefer
something that's straightforward. We already have min-width and max-width,
and they seem to be pretty well-suited to the needs at hand. And while
there's something that nags at me about using calc(10px + 2fl) to set a
starting ('preferred'?) width, I haven't seen a notation that makes more
sense yet and can't think of one myself. I just think of it as a kind of
algebraic expression - the width is 10 pixels plus "however much". "However
much" might be negative, which is totally fine in my mind. Anyone who has
the hang of negative margins (...no offense, Brad ^_^;;) should probably be
able to handle the concept of the flex part of a width being negative.

- Eli Morris-Heft

[1] I'll just use 'width' here in place of 'width/height/etc...'