Re: A CSS equivalent of HTML's DOCTYPE trigger

On 10/1/12 04:00, Tab Atkins Jr. wrote:
> Doctype switching isn't really a "useful" property. We employed it as 
> a last resort to help with compat in the bad old days of IE 
> domination, when there was a major irreconcilable difference between 
> what IE did and what the specs wanted. If the modern WG was 
> transported back to that time we probably wouldn't have done it - more 
> likely, we'd have adopted IE's box model and added the box-sizing 
> property earlier. Similarly, here, if we find parts of text layout 
> that we want to change, we'll just add properties to allow changing 
> it. If it ends up being unfixable, we can make a new layout mode that 
> does things right. There's no reason to reach for the nuclear option 
> of a version switch. ~TJ 
I think you’re underestimating the number of compromises we've had to do 
over the years for backwards compatibility. I can't count the number of 
times I've read "that would be a good idea, but would break existing 
websites" in www-style threads.

-- 
Lea Verou (http://lea.verou.me | @LeaVerou)

Received on Tuesday, 10 January 2012 16:31:24 UTC