Re: [css3-flexbox] remove flex() function

On Wed, Jan 4, 2012 at 7:56 PM, Alex Mogilevsky <alexmog@microsoft.com>wrote:

>  *± From:* ojan@google.com [mailto:ojan@google.com] *On Behalf Of *Ojan
> Vafai****
>
> *± Sent:* Wednesday, January 04, 2012 7:27 PM****
>
> *± To:* Alex Mogilevsky****
>
> *± Cc:* Tab Atkins Jr.; Tony Chang; www-style@w3.org list****
>
> *± Subject:* Re: [css3-flexbox] remove flex() function****
>
> ±
>
> ± Nay from me. I don't think it's the end of the world if we make this
> change, but I find the new ****
>
> ± flexbox much easier to make sense of largely because the values you set
> are width and height. ****
>
> ± It's not great that we don't have a concept of a logical width for when
> you want to switch ****
>
> ± between row and column, but in practice you'll hit that use-case
> writing flexbox tests far more ****
>
> ± often than you'll hit in with real-world use-cases.****
>
> ± ****
>
> ± I acknowledge that there are some use-cases better met by a flex
> property, but I don't think it's ****
>
> ± worth the loss in clarity of just setting width/height directly.****
>
> ± ****
>
> ± Ojan****
>
> Lack of logical width is just one problem. There are more issues with
> “flex()” (http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-style/2011Nov/0729.html
> ),
>

I think others have responded to these issues and I don't have more to add.


>  and biggest issue for me that it if applied to ‘width’ and ‘height’ it is
> always valid and must make sense when not in flexbox.
>

I don't see a problem with just having the flex(1 0 10px) == 10px when not
in a flexbox. It doesn't seem weird to me.


> And it is just not the way it is done elsewhere in CSS, and the concept
> doesn’t seem unique enough to justify a unique solution.****
>

Are there other things that set width/height in CSS using different
properties?

Also, I think it probably makes sense to change grid to use flex() instead
of fr so that it can accomodate negative flexing, but that's a separate
discussion.