Dropping Prefixes Early on Transforms/Transitions/Animations

Tantek proposed during the conf call (and I proposed during the f2f,
and roc proposed 6 months ago on the list...) dropping the prefixes
for Transforms/Transitions/Animations (hereafter "TTA") early, while
we work to advance the spec normally (but quickly).

The major objector to this proposal was Sylvain, who argued that if we
can get TTA to CR in 2-3 months (the time estimate based on a 3-week
LC and 8-weeks for responding to comments), we don't need to unprefix
early, and if we *can't* get to CR in that period, the spec clearly
isn't stable anyway.

This is a false argument, based on a false equivalence.  Tantek is
suggesting that the syntax is clearly stable (single implementation
for a long time, multiple impls more recently), so we can go ahead and
unprefix and work under the assumption that we're constrained in any
changes by that.  However, the *functionality* may not be perfectly
stable yet; in particular, for 3d transforms there are still some
kinks to work out and define, such as how to render intersecting
elements.

The fact that functionality needs thought, tweaking, and spec work has
*no bearing* on whether the syntax is effectively frozen or not (in
this case, at least; generally, they usually are linked).  But
Sylvain's argument hinges on that, because for us to reach CR we need
both the functionality *and* the syntax to be stable.

So, we should reject Sylvain's false argument and go ahead and
unprefix TTA.  We already, for all practical purposes, act as if the
current syntax is a legacy constraint on future changes.  We shouldn't
pretend like we're going to make a breaking change.

This will *not* prevent us from making syntax changes in the future.
They will just have to be compatible with the existing syntax.

~TJ

Received on Wednesday, 15 February 2012 22:24:37 UTC