Re: Unprefixing CSS properties

On 11/17/11 9:27 AM, Brian Manthos wrote:
>> "CSS3 browser" and "CSS4 browser" are meaningless terms.
> No, they are not.  If that were the case, there is no point in having “Level 4” vs. “Level 3” modules.

There is no real point in having "Level 4" vs "Level 3" modules.

The only reason we have them, as far as I can tell, is that some "Level 
3" modules are in REC or CR but we want to add more features to them, so 
we're creating forks of the module, calling them "Level 4", and adding 
the features there.  Then for marketing reasons we're marking other 
modules developed at the same time "Level 4" as well.

It would make just as much sense to talk about "Selectors Level 4" but 
"Grid Layout Level 1", in my opinion.

>> You seem to be saying that adding features to CSS hurts interoperability
>> because not all user-agents will implement the new features simultaneously.
>
> No, I’m not saying that.  I’m saying that having multiple incompatible un-prefixed implementations of Level N of CSS for a given property is bad, in multiple ways.

Why is the "Level N" part important?  It's certainly not important to 
web developers; they don't care whether two UAs have incompatible 
un-prefixed implementations of property X because one implements "Level 
N" while the other implements "Level N+1" or for some other reason.  So 
who is it important to?

> The key concern is un-prefixed.  If you want different implementations of a property, that’s what prefixes are all about.

Unless you require that any new module revision be supported by all UAs 
before becoming unprefixed, that's just not true today....

-Boris

Received on Wednesday, 16 November 2011 21:08:37 UTC