[selectors-4] Rename :matches() to :is() #3258
Description
Breaking this one out from #2143 (comment) ; @gibson042 wrote:
@fantasai We may not live in an ideal world, but I think we do live in one that's close enough to introduce
:is()and redefine:matches()as a deprecated alias of it. What do you think?
The benefits would be: It's much shorter to type, and it makes a clear pairing with :not(), which is its opposite.
The downsides would be: It's already shipping in WebKit as :matches().
Here's the snippet of prior CSSWG discussion, excerpted from the naming of :where():
frremy: Why use the :matches() name at all, it's a bad name
leaverou: We're stuck with it anyway
...
leaverou: Would you object to :is() if it did what :matches()
currently does, and :match() is the 0 specificity one?
fantasai: No, I would not
...
frremy: :matches() was called that way because the DOM API is called that
fantasai: Actually, it's very old, original :matches() proposal was from hixie
a long time ago, before :any()
<dbaron> I implemented :-moz-any() in Gecko in 2010 in
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=544834
ericwilligers: It has been in webkit for a long time
astearns: How much web content uses :matches?
iank: Not a lot, looking at usecounter
ericwilligers: usecounter may be wrong
Rossen: Is either 2 or 7 an option? they involve changing :matches. webkit people,
can we do that?
myles: We could
myles: We would be moderately interested in updating, but it's low priority
dino: Why ?
fantasai: Because a well-named proposal otherwise is :is(), but it is bad if
it's specificity doesn't match :not()
fantasai: So we could change :matches() to be the 0 specificity one,
freeing :is() to do what :matches() does now
...
[subsequently eliminated :matches() from the list of proposals for #2143,
so this was not further discussed]
I believe other implementations besides WebKit are getting close to shipping :matches() so if we're renaming this, we need to do it asap.