Re: CfC: to publish "The srcset attribute" specification as a First Public Working Draft (FPWD)

On Feb 5, at 3:36 PM, Nathanael D. Jones wrote:

> I think many people were expecting a solution based on element size. 

I would be interested in seeing data to support this assertion.

> While that may not be a use-case you've aimed to solve, I think it should be the *primary* use-case, as it provides a simple solution to nearly every other use-case documented. 
> 
> Here's my full proposal:
> 
> https://gist.github.com/nathanaeljones/4706093


Where your goal is to selectively load images based on the size of the containing element and you�re comfortable delaying the requests for those assets until after the layout has been painted, the functionality you�re looking for could be easily accomplished using JavaScript and data attributes.

In terms of the above as a native solution: your proposal involves heavily modifying the syntax of media queries (with syntactical overlap between your proposal and the existing method of specifying media types), repurposing `width` and `height` attributes, and delaying image requests to well beyond the initial parsing of the markup (waiting until CSS and JS is requested, transferred, and rendered to begin requesting image sources). As a first step, I might recommend reaching out to browser representatives to determine the implementation viability of your proposal�there are several members of the RICG that would likely be willing to offer you feedback.

I understand that this is a subject to which a great deal of people have given thought. I�m happy to continue this discussion on the RICG mailing list, but I�m sure you can understand where we won�t be withdrawing the `picture` proposal based on proposals that haven�t yet been thoroughly vetted or discussed at any length. The HTML WG Administrative list doesn�t seem like the appropriate venue for those discussions.

Thanks,
Mat Marquis


> For the record: 
> 
> I do not believe the advantages of slightly-earlier prefetching outweigh the benefits of a CSS-based approach. There are many possible optimizations available to ensure the delay can be reduced to ~40ms for a cache miss (Probably ~15ms with SPDY), and it is simply not worth the markup complexity required. 
> 
> Best regards,
> Nathanael Jones
> 
> 
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