Re: wading into the Prefix morass...

On Feb 21, 2012, at 18:38 , Alan Gresley wrote:

> On 22/02/2012 4:25 AM, David Singer wrote:
>> And a whole bunch of pages that used to work, stop working.
> 
> No, the pages will still work. Some pages (which should become smaller over time) may not show box-shadow or border-radius.
> 
> Pages that use just box-shadow and border-radius without vendor prefixes will work just fine.

Alan, you're missing the point.  The feature that the author wanted (e.g. box-shadow), which is all we're discussing:
* was originally documented as available only prefixed, so they write their pages using only the prefix;  it is as much an error to write unprefixed pages as unprefixed implementations
* at some point, a decision is made to document the stable unprefixed version, and allows its use
* you propose that the browser vendors then, at their next update, dump support for the prefixed version.  

All the existing uses of that feature (which is all we're discussing) then break, until the authors do an update.  Not acceptable.

> 
>> What's
>> the corresponding benefit?
> 
> To allow for CSS standardization to become better. To allow the web implementation community and testing community to move beyond what I see as a critical point in it's evolution.


Its evolution will be fine, if we manage the transition from vendor prefix, to shared prefix, to unprefixed, correctly.  It won't be if we dump pages that used to work, abruptly.

David Singer
Multimedia and Software Standards, Apple Inc.

Received on Wednesday, 22 February 2012 17:37:36 UTC