[whatwg] Features for responsive Web design

[Jacob Mather]

On Wed, May 16, 2012 at 5:22 PM, Kornel Lesiński <kornel at geekhood.net> wrote:
> On Wed, 16 May 2012 20:12:19 +0100, Jacob Mather <jmather at itsmajax.com>
> wrote:
>
>> Maybe this is the better question:
>>
>> Why does the pre-loader matter so much?
>>
>> Basing the selected image off of browser width is inherently
>> backwards. The content should be informed by the layout, not by the
>> browser.
>
>
> Browsers want to download images in parallel with a stylesheet, i.e. they
> must know which images to load *before* CSS is loaded.
>
> This is very important to browser vendors. Google goes even as far as
> replacing the HTTP protocol to remove those kinds of delays.
>
>
> In addition to that applying layout to the page may be computationally
> expensive, so it would further delay time it takes to start loading images.
>
> And finally corner cases can lead to loops:
>
> <div style="float:left">
> <picture>
> <source media="max-container-width:100px" src="200px-wide-image.png">
> <source media="min-container-width:100px" src="50px-wide-image.png">
> </picture>
> </div>
>
> --
> regards, Kornel Lesiński

As I said, I understand that it is a hard problem, but the question
is, is it the correct problem.

There are plenty of reasons not to do it, but is there any actual
reason that the approach is less correct than the current proposals?