"permanently standardizing one group's notion of what variables should look like when less than 1% of all web applications use any form of CSS templates"
I don't have to agree with Bos that high-level stylesheets are a bad idea (I don't; I think they're a great idea) to agree with him that we shouldn't be inflicting them on everything that renders or interprets styled HTML.
And hey --- for what it's worth --- I can see how Bos didn't do his argument a big favor by writing an essay-length rant about why variables are a bad idea. I think he raises some good points. For instance, have these proposals really thought scoping through, and have we really thought about how this will impact authorship tools? But these aren't the reasons we shouldn't be in the business of standardizing the idea.
On the other hand, Matt's argument is just as wrongheaded. It is absolutely not the case that standards groups should be rushing to alleviate web developer pain. Like I said, if they took that approach, we'd be stuck with QuickSilver templates, baked permanently into the HTML standard.
"adding another step to the build process"
is worse than
"permanently standardizing one group's notion of what variables should look like when less than 1% of all web applications use any form of CSS templates"
I don't have to agree with Bos that high-level stylesheets are a bad idea (I don't; I think they're a great idea) to agree with him that we shouldn't be inflicting them on everything that renders or interprets styled HTML.
And hey --- for what it's worth --- I can see how Bos didn't do his argument a big favor by writing an essay-length rant about why variables are a bad idea. I think he raises some good points. For instance, have these proposals really thought scoping through, and have we really thought about how this will impact authorship tools? But these aren't the reasons we shouldn't be in the business of standardizing the idea.
On the other hand, Matt's argument is just as wrongheaded. It is absolutely not the case that standards groups should be rushing to alleviate web developer pain. Like I said, if they took that approach, we'd be stuck with QuickSilver templates, baked permanently into the HTML standard.