Re: wading into the Prefix morass...

* Charles Pritchard wrote:
>On 2/21/2012 1:12 PM, Bjoern Hoehrmann wrote:
>> Any proposal with respect to vendor prefixes has to explain how it will
>> aid standardization, development of standard features without prefixes.
>> Or it would have to explain how we are better off without standards. I
>> do not see either in your proposal.
>
>A shared vendor prefix, like -css-* would let authors know immediately 
>that at least two vendors have agreed on the semantic. That's generally 
>the bar we try to meet with standardization: are there two independent 
>implementations?

If this is meant as an argument for how your proposal would aid in stan-
dardization, then let me clarify I meant standardization in terms of
"there is a specification that is considered authoritative and there is
no notable reason to expect major changes, and that is immediately clear
to you when you look at the specification". That is the bar.

As an example, the timely availability of a test suite with good cover-
age makes major changes more predictable, so if you have a vendor prefix
proposal and can make a good argument that implementing the proposal
would aid in getting such a test suite more timely, and would thus aid
standardization, then there is a good reason to evaluate the proposal.

For instance, let's make the prefix "-browser-vendors-must-contribute-
to-the-test-suite-in-proportion-to-their-market-share-", then you could
reasonably argue that people would keep an eye on that, and that minor
vendors would likely invest into test suite contributions because they
get a lot more out of it than they put in, if the public calls out the
browser vendors who do not contribute properly, so we would get test
suites with good coverage more timely and should correspondingly get
standard features more timely, and so prefixes become less of a problem,
precisely what we want.

The example is silly of course, it is only meant to illustrate what kind
of argument I would expect in this discussion; I don't have better ex-
amples precisely because people are not making this kind of argument and
I myself don't see how minor changes to naming conventions would lead to
better standardization; it looks like curing symptoms to me, not causes.
-- 
Björn Höhrmann · mailto:bjoern@hoehrmann.de · http://bjoern.hoehrmann.de
Am Badedeich 7 · Telefon: +49(0)160/4415681 · http://www.bjoernsworld.de
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Received on Tuesday, 21 February 2012 23:10:15 UTC