Csswg-drafts: [selectors3] better terminology for ~ sibling combinator?

[dbaron]

A recent edit changed the terminology for sibling selectors:

"Adjacent Sibling Combinator" -> "Next-sibling Combinator"
"General Sibling Combinator" -> "Following-sibling Combinator"

I'm a bit hesitant about this change, because it doesn't seem obvious to me that "following" means "any later sibling". I think I occasionally hear the term "following sibling" as a synonym for "next sibling" rather than meaning "any later sibling".

I wonder if there are better options here for the latter combinator. Maybe "Later-sibling combinator" would be better -- although I'm still not sure that it fully disambiguates.

[inoas]

I know it is a bit more verbose but for sure clear?

Next-Immediate-Sibling Combinator
Any-Following-Sibling Combinator

[bkardell]

Maybe just pluralizing helps?
”following siblings” sounds less misleading than ”following sibling”

[inoas]

~Immediate-Sibling Combinator vs Following-Siblings Combinator maybe?~
Forget it... without next the direction is not specified.

[Loirooriol]

@bkardell The problem with plural is that it doesn't work when reading right-to-left, which is usually the natural way to read selectors. For example, a ~ b > c would be

Select any c element
that is a child of a b element
that is a following sibling [can't use plural!] of an a element.

"Following" is confusing indeed. What about "posterior" or "subsequent"?

• Next Sibling Combinator
• Posterior Sibling Combinator

[SelenIT]

I suppose that it can be read as "...that is _one of_ the following siblings of..." or "that _belongs to the set of_ the following siblings of...". So pluralization is not such a big problem. But the word "subsequent" looks good to me.

[tabatkins]

Tangent: you have an interesting notion of "recent", @dbaron, since that edit was from 2012. ^_^

@dbaron: Are you okay with @SelenIT's suggestion of subsequent? I think it suffers from the same problem as "following", but it's my favorite suggested so far, at least. ^_^

I'm unsure that any single word would solve your concern 100% unambiguously; they can all be interpreted as "the immediate sibling" as well. We'd have to go with multiple words to be fully unambiguous, I think.

That said, I do think the words we are using now are a definite improvement over the pre-2012 terminology of "adjacent" and "general", which don't convey directionality.

[dbaron]

Tangent: you have an interesting notion of "recent", @dbaron, since that edit was from 2012. ^_^

Ah, it was an old edit, recently brought to the working group for republication of the selectors3 REC.

I guess I'm OK with "subsequent", although it's not clearly better than "later" to me, and it goes against Orwell's advice (see the "Pretentious Diction" section).

[tabatkins]

I agree that it's not better than later/following/etc, and also that it's a complicated word for no good reason. ^_^

[AmeliaBR]

I agree with the original concern that "following" can be too-easily read as "immediately following". But not sure "subsequent" is an improvement. I also suspect that "later" could be confusing, because it properly refers to time relationships and we're talking about spatial relationships.

From a plain-language perspective, my vote would be for "Any-Following-Sibling Combinator".

These are definitions, not syntax that people actually have to type on a regular basis, so clarity should win out over compactness.

[svgeesus]

I'm pleased to see this terminology change getting wide review, since that is one of the requirements for transition to a new (no substantive change) Recommendation in Process 2017
https://www.w3.org/2017/Process-20170301/#rec-modify

[tabatkins]

(It's an editorial change, adjusting the non-API-exposed name of a feature in a spec. It's not substantive - it is impossible to cause any change, positive or negative, in impl support as a result.)

[svgeesus]

Yes, that is what "no substantive change" means :)

[fantasai]

Renamed to Subsequent-sibling Combinator per WG acceptance of dbaron's comments. I think it's good enough. :)