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The way JavaScript works is we can do scripts as an inline block:

<script>
  let foo = "bar";
</script>

Or, if the script should be fetched from the network…

<script src="/js/global.js"></script>

With CSS, we can do an inline block of styles:

<style>
  .foo { color: red; }
</style>

So why not ? Instead, we have .

Harry Roberts asked about that the other day on Twitter:

Can any W3 historians tell us why it’s “ and not “?

— Harry Roberts (@csswizardry) November 29, 2018

There is lots of speculation in that thread, but Bruce has a pretty clear answer:

AFAIK, tells the browser to get something and insert it here – eg , “. Stylesheets aren’t ‘inserted’, they are related to the current doc, but typically style more than 1 page. declares a block of rules for this page only

— Bruce Lawson (@brucel) November 29, 2018

I sort of get that. The location in the document matters with src, but not with — that relates to the entire document instead. I guess the crack in that reasoning is that the order of stylesheets does matter for order-specificity, but I take the point.

The W3C chimed to confirm that logic:

was completely obvious at the time, with for external resources that apply to the whole document (copyright, parent document, alternative formats, translations, style sheets); was never discussed. (1/2)

— W3C (@w3c) November 29, 2018

There we have it: wasn’t even considered.

The post Why isn’t it ? appeared first on CSS-Tricks.