‘Crazy’ Firefox and Opera CSS blasted
Mobile strategist Peter-Paul Koch angry at vendor prefix mess
Mobile platform strategist Peter-Paul Koch has lashed out at Firefox and Opera, due to the browser vendors’ implementations of the CSS device-pixel-ratio media query. As noted on the W3 CSS WG Blog, the query was ‘invented’ by WebKit rather than using the standardised 'resolution', and largely through the success of iOS devices, it’s become a common inclusion in many web pages.
However, Mozilla and Opera have used alternative syntax, as in the following example, which Koch presented on his post:
- -webkit-min-device-pixel-ratio: 1.5
- min-moz-device-pixel-ratio: 1.5
- -o-min-device-pixel-ratio: 3/2
Koch said this makes it far more difficult to write scripts to go through all the vendor prefixes. Previously, he has been a stern advocate of diverse platforms. In February, Koch argued developers focus on the iPhone too much, which was causing at least the perception of a WebKit browser monoculture, if not an actual one.
In Opera and Firefox not mirroring WebKit's lead in this particular slice of CSS, which follows the former company’s decision to use a small number of WebKit prefixes in its browser, Koch has seemingly been driven over the edge: “ENOUGH IS ENOUGH! I used to care a lot about diversity on the browser market, but I find myself slipping from that point of view. It’s just a fucking impossible system to maintain with fucking morons in charge of making up browser-specific CSS syntax.”
A Mozilla spokesperson dismissed the issue and told .net: "It's a mistake to read too much into vendor-prefixed rules. We remove prefixes from properties aggressively as soon as we're comfortable with their implementation, and this property is one that we intend to unprefix soon."
Opera had not returned .net’s request for comment at the time of publication.
3 comments
Comment: 1
Comment: 2
Just use things that have actually been thought over and not stuff that WebKit makes up like it does all the damn time. I hate their own little quirks they keep adding. There is innovation, and then there is a complete disregard for any kind of standard.
Just use the resolution media query.
http://www.w3.org/TR/css3-mediaqueries/#resolution
Comment: 3
The real problem is a combination of browser engineers who's jobs rely on thinking up new stuff that they can do with browsers (innovate or die) coupled with a class of web-developer that has the attention span of a hummingbird - flitting from one kewl thing to another.
This is NOT Production Class code folks, and while I share @PPK's frustration to a certain extent, I also think he's making a mountain out of a mole-hill. This is exactly the kind of crud developers have to deal with and admit to if/when they subscribed to the "Living Standard" horse-feathers of the WHAT WG. This friends is EXACTLY what a Living Standard looks like (it should more accurately be called an Evolving Standard, but that suggests that it isn't ready for Prime Time yet. But guess what? It isn't!)
The whole point of the W3C "process" (and the time it takes to manage that process) is to *exactly* avoid this kind of mess: it becomes a W3C Standard (Recommendation) once all the kinks have been discussed and ironed out (which sometimes involves - gasp - compromise). If you as a developer are too impatient to wait for that process to work its way forward (and are unwilling to assist in that progress) then by all means go ahead and use all this experimental stuff. Just don't come whining to the larger web about how your life has been inconvenienced because you chose to be Kewl. You'll find little sympathy (at least from me)