Re: [css3-fonts] @font-feature-values editorial

Sylvain Galineau wrote:

> >At a syntax level, or rather a Syntax level, they're at-rules, end of
> >story.  There's no reason to distinguish them from "real" at-rules,
> >because there's no such distinction - at-rules have all sorts of crazy
> >rules for what can be put inside of them.
> 
> Right; they will be parsed and error handled as such. John does not
> seem to think of them as such though. I'm not yet quite sure how the
> difference matters for the user - more awkward CSSOM for at-rules? -
> but if the downsides of treating them as at-rules do not justify an
> alternative syntax then shouldn't they be at-rules?
> 
> Fwiw I doubt web developers will distinguish the two. (Most I've met
> think of @font-face descriptors as properties and describe them that
> way, fwiw)

This sort of misconception is part of what motivates me to *not* want
to call these @-rules.  Descriptors (or "properties") in @-rules are
easily misconstrued with "normal" style properties.  The names of
these descriptors are predefined and they can be used case
insensitively (margin-top is the same as MARGIN-TOP).  Neither is
true for feature value definitions which are a simple set of user-defined
named value pairs with limited scope.

My goal is simply to try to make the wording distinct and avoid equating
them with other more general terms that follow a slightly different pattern,
such as @-rule descriptor names.  I'm fine with whatever wording others 
think is needed to make the syntax handling rules match but I think it's
important to use different wording to describe these.

Cheers,

John Daggett

Received on Wednesday, 5 June 2013 21:47:07 UTC