
A Word About CSS4 - cleverjake
http://www.xanthir.com/b4Ko0
======
mcot2
I honestly couldn't tell if this was a joke or not. Tab is usually spot on and
I like reading his blog.

What difference does it make if someone uses the term "CSS4 Selectors" instead
of "CSS Selectors Level 4"???

~~~
bodhi
Using an example from the article:

> Others start out at level 1, if they're something new (for example, Flexbox

"CSS Flexbox level 1" is a fair bit less confusing than "CSS1 Flexbox model".
It would get even worse if a module moved to level 2.1!

------
rootedbox
We know that most browsers couldn't hit a single standing target of a spec. So
in order to fix the problem we've made multiple specs that move independently,
and at various speeds.

~~~
arrrg
But that’s always how it was. They just decided to make the standards process
officially fit what happens in the real world.

------
kevinconroy
There's no CSS4 right now, but eventually it will get a version bump or
they'll draw a line in the sand or the community will select a new term that
will come to mean the new set of functionality (even if it's not an official
spec).

HTML -> DHTML -> HTML5

JavaScript -> AJAX

CSS -> CSS2 -> CSS3 -> ____ -> Profit?

~~~
est
Oh god how does Javascript become AJAX?

AJAX is largely part of DOM, it's just some http callbacks your browser
provide to Javascript.

~~~
alexchamberlain
Also, wasn't DHTML just HTML+JS?

~~~
andybak
DHTML was just a way to sell books with 'DHTML' in the title.

------
ftwinnovations
I just wanted to point out that this guys site is all messed up on my iPhone.
CSS problems basically. But I'm sure he's really good as CSS...

And what's with all the troll comments on his page? Looked like reddit got
there first. I laughed.

~~~
TabAtkins
If there are any problems, it's because you're using an old browser. (As far
as I know.) The iPhone browser definitely counts as "old". ^_^

In particular, a bunch of browsers don't support specifying background-size in
the background shorthand yet. It's in modern WebKit, but that hasn't trickled
down to mobile versions yet.

~~~
ftwinnovations
Yup my 4S sure feels old. Sure wish I had a modern browser like IE9 on there.
Blast!!

------
sli
CSS3 will inevitably reach some kind of EOL eventually. If there will never be
a CSS4, what will take CSS's place?

~~~
mnutt
It's just nomenclature; CSS3 will eventually just become "CSS" and each module
will move forward on its own. And they're really just codifying what was
already happening: browsers never jumped from CSS1 to CSS2 or CSS2 to CSS3;
they just added support bit by bit.

~~~
pbhjpbhj
> _they just added support bit by bit_ //

I imagine that, in part at least, is because the standards have taken so long
to be codified.

We've been calling it CSS3 and it's been implemented gradually in browsers but
it's still a working document and not a finished standard (and now it seems
never will be).

The pace of required changed for the needs of web page production and
rendering is faster than the pace of the standards confirmation.

If this is just to address this issue then why not have "selectors 3", or
whatever, as a part of a point release.

------
mvkel
Despite there being obvious confusion over the css4 selectors, I'd bet they
make zero effort to rename, thus clearing up confusion for all the folks who
don't follow up with CSSWG.

~~~
TabAtkins
You, um, know that Selectors is one of the few specs _without_ naming
problems, right? Its url is "selectors4".

As well (partially as a result of me writing this blog post), we're looking
into changing our URL structure, which was originally settled on a decade ago,
before we knew how we were going to do this "module" thing.

But hey, nice attempt at trolling.

------
feverishaaron
This post exhibits everything that is wrong with standards bodies.

~~~
batista
Nothing of the sort actually.

On the contrary, it shows how by breaking things into smaller modules instead
of a monolithic one, they got things moving along faster.

~~~
pbhjpbhj
> _they got things moving along faster_ //

We can't really be sure of that can we. What we can be sure of is that there's
no way to summarise the CSS standards compliance of a browser or to indicate
concisely the browser level requirements of a website for a human. This I fear
makes designing for the web a case of breaking down and designing for lots of
individual UA that meet a list of hundreds of different point versions for
different abilities instead of being able to simply design to a standard
HTML5+CSS3 and readily see that the top X browsers will support (with some
issues of course) the elements of those standards.

Instead of one current standard there are now hundreds of standards?!

~~~
batista
> _We can't really be sure of that can we._

No, but we can be sure that conceptually it's far better than the monolithic
practice, which has been shown in the past to slow down the standardising
process.

> _What we can be sure of is that there's no way to summarise the CSS
> standards compliance of a browser or to indicate concisely the browser level
> requirements of a website for a human._

That was always true. I mean, we might have had a "way to summarise the CSS
standard compliance", as in "this browser is CSS 2 compatible", but we never
had a 100% compatible browser for any previous version. I doubt we still have
a full CSS2 compatible browser engine, so so much for summarizing.

Now, it could be easier: we could have a browser that is 100% compatible with
A, B, C, D CSS modules and lacks in X, Y, Z.

It's not like developers care about the overall compatibility. What they do
care is "can I use this or that feature?". To say "this engine is 90% CSS3
compatible doesn't answer that". Only 100% compatibility would answer those
kinds of questions ("yes, you can use ANY feature").

So, they way to summarise compliance will be, as it is the practice anyway,
with some list of CSS features and Yes/No tick marks. And for some things,
with the knowledge that for that module the engine has 100% compliance (easier
to achieve than the ellusive 100% compliance over ALL modules).

~~~
pbhjpbhj
> _Now, it could be easier: we could have a browser that is 100% compatible
> with A, B, C, D CSS modules and lacks in X, Y, Z._ //

In CSS2 there are about 500 or so different things that you'd need to list
(<http://www.w3.org/TR/CSS2/indexlist.html>).

I dispute that people care about 100% compatibility.

> _So, they way to summarise compliance will be [...] some list of CSS
> features and Yes/No tick marks._ //

I think you misunderstand the meaning of "summarise", "this engine is 90% CSS3
compatible" is a summary. Quirksmodes tables -
<http://www.quirksmode.org/css/contents.html> \- whilst useful during
development aren't really something you can put before a user as an equivalent
to an "HTML5" badge.

------
dmix
Who's involved in the CSSWG? How does one become a contributor? Who are our
CSS overlords?

~~~
magicalist
Seriously? I'll even skip the lmgtfy:

<http://www.w3.org/Style/CSS/members>

The mailing list is open to the public. If you do decide to participate,
please treat it as you would when joining any long-standing forum.

------
jordaninternets
Lets call it CSS ∞ then!

------
goggles99
Good because I am sick of hearing about it anyway - almost as sick as hearing
about the glorious "someday soon" of HTML5.

~~~
heretohelp
We use HTML5 prolifically. It's a calculated decision, precious few of the
people who visit our site/use our apps use anything that doesn't support core
HTML5.

~~~
unvs
Thinking about going that route myself. Do you use html5shiv?

~~~
heretohelp
No.

Also, you mean shim I think.

A shiv is something you fashion out of a toothbrush and shove into the guts of
somebody that mouthed off to you in the cafeteria in cell block A last week.

~~~
unvs
No.

The name is html5shiv, and it is something you fashion out of javascript and
shove into the guts of IE.

