Re: Unprefixing CSS properties

Robert O'Callahan wrote:

> Web authors have complained a lot about excessive need for vendor
> prefixing. Henri Sivonen has recently blogged about the damage
> prefixing can do to the Web --- see
> http://hsivonen.iki.fi/vendor-prefixes/ .
> 
> One observation is that when browser vendors already agree closely on
> the syntax and semantics of a property, and when Web authors routinely
> use the same property value for multiple engines' prefixed properties
> and the unprefixed property, in public Web content, vendor prefixes
> are providing negligible benefit and incur considerable costs --- or
> outright harm. I think we can improve the situation in the short term
> with relatively low risk by identifying properties whose specs are not
> yet in CR, but where the spec is considered stable (but for whatever
> reason not ready to enter CR, perhaps because it contains other
> properties that aren't stable), and agreeing to encourage unprefixed
> implementations of those properties. Naturally we still want
> implementations to be reasonably conformant before shipping
> unprefixed. 

I think everyone agrees that having vendor prefixes around for a long
time is far from ideal.  But I think unprefixing properties with
supposedly stable implementations based on ED/WD versions of the spec is
a tricky game to play.  I specifically think it's a bad idea to do this
with specs that haven't at least gone through a LPWD comment period,
because that's when a lot of specs are reviewed much more carefully by a
wider variety of folks.

I think the best approach here is to get specs out faster and eliminate
the feature creep that often prevents specs from progressing more
quickly (e.g. radial-gradient wonderland or some of the I18N-gone-wild
features of CSS3 Lists).

Cheers,

John Daggett

Received on Thursday, 17 November 2011 00:13:54 UTC