Re: [lots] -webkit prefixed properties and values

> On 10 Dec 2015, at 10:17, Tab Atkins Jr. <jackalmage@gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> On Wed, Dec 9, 2015 at 2:15 PM, Dean Jackson <dino@apple.com> wrote:
>>> On 10 Dec 2015, at 08:19, Tab Atkins Jr. <jackalmage@gmail.com> wrote:
>>> Per the Compat Spec <https://compat.spec.whatwg.org/>, there's a
>>> decent-sized list of CSS at-rules, values, and properties that need to
>>> be supported with a -webkit- prefix in order to be web-compatible:
>>> <https://compat.spec.whatwg.org/#css-compat-section>.
>>> 
>>> Since implementors have to support these in order to realistically
>>> support web content, they should be listed alongside the features in
>>> the relevant specs (rather than sidelined into an easy-to-miss errata
>>> document like they currently are).
>> 
>> I disagree. The existing implementors (obviously) know about
>> these properties. New implementors are unlikely to start from
>> scratch. And even if they do, the number of new implementors
>> that appear each year can be rounded to about zero.
> 
> As Ms2ger responded, new implementations *do* show up, and when they
> do, this knowledge is *not* obvious or ingrained.  Servo is a new
> project *within Mozilla* and they've had to do a lot of work to
> transfer over some of this "implicit knowledge”.

Yeah, I worded that badly. I didn’t mean to suggest there are no
new implementations, just that they are rare and will have a lot of
specs to read and a lot of compatibility work to do.

> 
>> Honestly, I don’t think it’s worth advertising these properties
>> any more than they currently are. The sooner we stop talking
>> about them, the sooner we can remove support (even if that
>> is many years away).
> 
> It would be listed as an "implementors MUST, authors MUST NOT" sort of
> thing.  Pretending they don't exist isn't helping existing
> implementors.

I never suggested that we should pretend they don’t exist. I said I
don’t want them in the main specification - they are fine in the
compatibility specification. We could even have a note in the main
specification reminding these implementors that there are
compatibility issues and telling them where to look. The compatibility
spec could then have the big “NOTHING TO SEE HERE IF YOU’RE
NOT AN IMPLEMENTOR” warning.

Dean

Received on Wednesday, 9 December 2015 23:26:58 UTC