[whatwg] Features for responsive Web design

[Andy Davies]

On 18 May 2012 15:28, Glenn Maynard <glenn at zewt.org> wrote:
>
> Only if there are actual problems solved by doing so, which there don't
> seem to be.  Instead, people seem to be hunting for excuses to use parts of
> the other proposal just for the sake of using them, not to solve any actual
> problem.  ("That's not a good reason to do it?  Hold on, let me try to come
> up with another...")
>

Perhaps but I think the real problem may be this...

The other proposals have been knocked around by various parties who
wanted to solve a problem, they had time to discuss it, digest it and
see how it grew to meet their needs.

Now srcset was dropped on them as a surprise, they're still trying to
understand it, they keep being re-assured it meets their needs but
no-one who developed the srcset proposal has really come out and
explained to them how it meets their needs so they keep asking
questions...

I wasn't involved in the picture discussion so have no particular
attachment to it, I think both picture and srcset have problems in
that they move breakpoints into the markup, srcset's "microsyntax" is
pretty horrible and the picture syntax has issues too.

The thing that really astounds me about the responsive/adaptive images
hullabaloo is:

The responsive image problem has been discussed for at least a year
with plenty of ideas / workarounds floated around (only got to look a
slidedecks form Mobilism, Breaking Development etc. for this) yet
WHATWG seemed pretty unaware of it.

When WHATWG did decide to do something about it they just dropped it
on the people who wanted it by surprise without talking to them first
even just to say "this is our proposal, this is how we think it solves
your problem, what do you think?"

I can understand why some of the "authors" are upset and I still thing
the srcset needs explaining clearly rather than them having to chew
through the spec.

Cheers

Andy