Re: Shadow DOM: Hat and Cat -- if that's your real name.

On Feb 4, 2014 7:45 PM, "Sylvain Galineau" <galineau@adobe.com> wrote:
>
>
> On Feb 4, 2014, at 4:14 PM, Tab Atkins Jr. <jackalmage@gmail.com>
>  wrote:
>
> > On Tue, Feb 4, 2014 at 3:19 PM, Sylvain Galineau <galineau@adobe.com>
wrote:
> >> On Feb 4, 2014, at 2:57 PM, Tab Atkins Jr. <jackalmage@gmail.com>
> >> wrote:
> >>> There's no implied commitment here, just the reality that whatever
> >>> syntax we choose here is likely to freeze quickly as soon as it's
> >>> shipped.
> >>>
> >>> Even if we want to, it will be hard or impossible to change
> >>> in the future.
> >>
> >> That sounds a bit like pre-emptive fait accompli :). Shouldn't a large
amount of content depend on this for things to be hard to change? It may be
that Google plans to produce such content; or maybe you expects apps in
your app store to quickly develop a lot of dependencies on this through
libraries or what not? If so, I still think that's your responsibility.
(And yes, it's risky)
> >
> > I just expect the web to adopt this stuff pretty quickly, and make
> > changing it very difficult in a short amount of time.
>
> I hope we can at least agree that 'I just expect' and 'pretty quickly'
are 100% subjective. I do not expect things that are only supported in one
or two browsers to get adopted anywhere near as quickly and deeply as
things that are supported in 4+ browsers. The very small number of people I
know who don't work on a browser team and bothered to actually try Polymer
all gave up pretty quickly. I certainly can't claim my perception to be
representative; but it may at least suggest there exists a range of
perception wide enough to make it difficult for you to proceed with mere
belief statements.
>
> >
> >>> Lots of Shadow DOM can be tweaked post-shipping, and likely will for
> >>> some time as we continue to tweak things based on experience in the
> >>> wild and further input from others.  CSS syntax probably can't,
> >>> because that's how the world works.
> >>
> >> This thread suggests there is more to it than syntax. (And for the
record I'm fine with ^ and ^^, fwiw; more worried about whether/how
component authors can choose what ^^ can see).
> >
> > Nope, it's just syntax.
>
> It's just syntax, except for the feedback from Peter, Ted, myself and
others, which is about much more than just syntax.
>
> >
> > ~TJ
>
>

As it is it is behind a flag and we have polymer - but shadow dom in
particular is tricky to p(r)ollyfill and maybe the most enabling underlying
feature the platform has seen in a long time.  You can doubt or disagree,
but I think odds are pretty good that we're going to see substantial enough
uptake fast that no one is gonna seriously have the appetite to change once
released out from behind the flag.  It seems to me it's easier/safer to use
a name and iterate than it is to add a new combinator as those are limited
-and- form the really abstract bits dev have to learn with no kind of
mnemonic.  A short concise syntax might be desirable, but not ultimately
necessary to rush.  It just feels more realistic to give them names for now
and iterate.  Worst case there is we wind up with a less than optimal
pseudo-element name as legacy, which,  honestly probably isn't that big a
deal.

Just my 2 cents.