Comment by Jason Knight on "Should you use data attributes for primary element styling?"

I would first be worried that you felt the need to create a data- attribute called "form" for a bloody form tag. Seems a bit redundant.

I would then be worried that you felt the need to create a data- attribute called "form" for a bloody form tag. Seems a bit redundant.

I realize this is in fact only one thing, but it is such a colossal sticking point I felt it warranted being repeated.

"c-form" is also painfully vague... We already know it's a form, hence it being a form TAG, WHAT is it a form OF?!?

For ME, I can't use attribute selectors yet, I'm still supporting too many users at places like healthcare and government offices who are on browsers that don't support them yet -- so it's not even a choice anyways.

Though since you said you're using BEM, that probably means endless pointless classes for everything and failing to leverage selectors properly; at which point why are you worried about one more class?

In all likelihood that alone probably means the whole codebase needs a good toss in the bin and a complete restart from scratch.

I'm still supporting too many users at places like healthcare and government offices who are on browsers that don't support them yet

You must still supporting IE6 in production then, because they work fine in all browsers IE7+, or another way to look at it — every browser released in the last 11 years has supported custom data attributes.

Tommy Hodgins Yes I do actually mean IE6, though 7's implementation of attribute selectors is buggy as sin too. A LOT of hospitals and clinics I deal with internally are still using geode thin clients and other such windows CE 6/earlier devices... which is why Windows CE6 is such a pain in the arse since the big thing they bragged about on its release was 6 on 6, FINALLY bringing IE6 to windows CE 6... which would be all well and good IF IT WASN'T RELEASED IN 2009!!!

No joke, 2009 and the big feature of CE 6 was they upgraded it from 5.5 to 6. What did you miss the big 6 on 6 party? THAT'S OK, SO DID EVERYBODY ELSE!

You start telling cash starved family clinics that could barely afford thin clients six years ago they "have" to upgrade they'll tell you where to stick it. Same for many state offices here in New Hampshire where encountering Win98 boxes is still commonplace (and horrifying) -- you'd almost think this state had no income tax, no sales tax, paid it's state representatives $200 every two years and might treat them lunch, but still manages to provide better medicaid, TANF, and other state assistance than the Commiewealth of Taxachusetts manages where taxation was akin to the Beatles song.

Even in 2010 it was uncommon for web design shops to support IE6, so you've been supporting browsers that have been considered “legacy” for almost a decade! You must admit that the web platform has grown and expanded in the last sixteen years, and the reliable use of custom data attributes is something that's a part of the platform today and does work reliably in all browsers released within the last decade, right?

Tommy Hodgins The data-attributes themselves? YES. Even though they didn't exist if you use them right you can even get them working all the way back to IE 5.5 -- just use Element.getAttribute instead of the Element.dataset object.

It's the attribute SELECTOR in CSS that's the issue, which quite often flat out goes bits-up face down even in IE8. Wasn't really something reliable until IE9... and even then I don't trust it in any M$ browser prior to edge.

... and if you put embedded and thin clients in the picture, IE 6 is a browser released in the past decade. NO, that's not a typo. In a lot of embedded and mass deployment situations IE 5.5 was bleeding edge as recently as 2008! Medical, banking, government agencies... militaries. (remember Wobbly Goblins were crashing in Gulf 2 as they were running a mid-1990's version of CE with the clock rollover bug?)

Which yes, leads to some scary broken pain in the ass issues in terms of compatibility, security, and just plain whiskey tango foxtrot.

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