Baroque CSS (was: Why do we write standards?)

[Jelks Cabaniss]

Bill dehOra wrote:

> I see some standards that are verging on the Baroque. CSS comes to mind,
> maybe CORBA. CSS is way ahead of anything anyone is implementing right
> now and the features are being piled on for CSS3.

"Baroque" is a good word; in the case of one major W3C Working Draft, "Broke" is
better.  With "Behaviorial Extensions to CSS" <http://www.w3.org/TR/becss>, we
might as well just do away with MIME types altogether and declare everything to
be text/whatever -- it certainly makes a mockery of text/css (reminiscent of
what happened to text/html...).  The "extensions" are inserted directly in the
CSS, like this (from the WD):

	@script {
	  var count = 0;
	  function checkCount() {
	    if (document.getElementsById("radio").value == "add") {
	      count++;
	    }
	    else {
	      count--;
	    }
	  }
	}

It get's even more, uh, Baroque ...

	<STYLE>
	/* Link all DIVs with a CLASS of "fly"
	   to the "flyin" component */
	DIV.fly { behavior: url("flyin.htc"); }
	</STYLE>

(No, that wasn't pulled from some "designer d00d's" page, that's right out of a
W3C Working Draft, invalid HTML and all!!!).

And for the ultimate in Baroqueness, check out the section on "HTML Components".

Yet as bizarre as this stuff is, it is apparently headed for Recommendation.
Why?  Because it has the blessing of both Microsoft and Netscape, and that's
apparently 95% of what's needed.  If George W. Bush and Al Gore decide child
abuse is a Good Thing ... well, by golly, I guess it must be.  If you feel
strongly about this, say so on the www-style mailing list (see
<http://www.w3.org/Mail/Lists.html>). Häkon Lie has spoken against it, so have a
few others; it's probably already a "done deal", but even so, it's right to
speak out against inevitable absurdities.

> Obese standards are invalid.

Indeed.


/Jelks


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