https://meyerweb.com/eric/thoughts/2014/06/19/rebeccapurple/ meyerweb.com Main content Navigation links Footer * Post Archives * CSS Work * Toolbox * Writing * Speaking * Other Stuff * About this site rebeccapurple Published 7 years, 2 months past I have been made aware of the proposal to add the named color beccapurple (equivalent to #663399) to the CSS specification, and also of the debate that surrounds it. I understand the arguments both for and against the proposal, but obviously I am too close to both the subject and the situation to be able to judge for myself. Accordingly, I let the editors of the Colors specification know that I will accept whatever the Working Group decides on this issue, pro or con. The WG is debating the matter now. I did set one condition: that if the proposal is accepted, the official name be rebeccapurple. A couple of weeks before she died, Rebecca informed us that she was about to be a big girl of six years old, and Becca was a baby name. Once she turned six, she wanted everyone (not just me) to call her Rebecca, not Becca. She made it to six. For almost twelve hours, she was six. So Rebecca it is and must be. Kat and I are deeply touched by all the caring and support from the community, and this proposal does mean a lot to me personally. It will always mean that, even if the proposal is ultimately declined. I always thought "it's an honor to have been nominated" was a pleasant spin on sour grapes, but it's not. It really is an honor, regardless of the outcome, even if it is an honor I wish nobody had had cause to think of in the first place. Thank you all. For everything. Update 22 Jun 14: the proposal was approved by the CSS WG and added to the CSS4 Colors module. Patches to web browsers have already happened in nightly builds. (I'm just now catching up on this after the unexpected death of Kat's father early Saturday morning.) * rebeccapurple was published on Thursday, June 19th, 2014. * It was assigned to the CSS and Rebecca categories. * There have been forty-three replies. --------------------------------------------------------------------- Comments (43) 1. If Constantinople can be a city, July a month, and Thursday a day, surely rebeccapurple can be a color. Signed, Michael C. Thursday, June 19th, 2014 2:45pm 2. This seems to me to be the equivalent of naming a star after a loved one. It is a beautiful tribute, and even though not everybody gets to have a color named after them, in this case, it's a moving and thoughtful way for your fellows to acknowledge you and your importance to CSS. And, most importantly, to remember Rebecca. Signed, Bunny Reynolds Thursday, June 19th, 2014 3:09pm 3. I so hope that the Working Group accepts this proposal. Signed, David Swinney Thursday, June 19th, 2014 3:15pm 4. Already landed on webkit http://trac.webkit.org/changeset/170136 Signed, Nick T. Thursday, June 19th, 2014 3:35pm 5. It is the passion and heart that drives the citizens of any generation to build memorials for the causes of their day. In this modern age, "our" materials for memorials are virtual. I am not a developer. But I appreciate what they do no less than the mighty men and women of the past who built our railways and highways, because when it comes down to it-the developers are building our virtual highways to the future. To repeat Wilto, web standards are concerned with -- and made up of- people. It is right, and fitting, that #663399 is known to all as rebeccapurple. It is proof positive that communities still can come together, virtual or otherwise, to memorialize the things important to the citizens of the day. A passion for people. Please do this. Signed, Sharon Thursday, June 19th, 2014 4:41pm 6. A resounding vote for `color: rebeccapurple;` from me. What a privilege it would be for me and so many others to honor her memory in our work. Signed, Cameron Moll Thursday, June 19th, 2014 4:57pm 7. How can we help? count me in, please Signed, federico Reinoso Thursday, June 19th, 2014 7:16pm 8. Hello, I am a passerby in your life, thanks to these posts, which I have read over the past few days. It doesn't feel fair to me, to feel such a deep sadness, when my experience of reading what amounts to a long journal in the past few days is nothing compared to the past few years of your life. I am commenting now, with a far less graceful command over the English language, to tell you that this blog has changed my life for the better. By sharing your pain, you have also effectively shared your humanity. I vow today, because of you, to appreciate every single second that I am able to share with my beautiful nieces and nephews, all of them under six years old. You made me realize how lucky I am, and how lucky all of us are, to love someone unconditionally. Your entire family will be in my heart forever, and I mean this as sincerely as I've ever meant anything. Thank you, so much, SO MUCH, for sharing. Signed, Emily Thursday, June 19th, 2014 7:42pm 9. My thoughts go out to you and your family; this story has moved me greatly. Thank you for bringing CSS to the masses and improving the web for the rest of us. Signed, Jonathan Kingston Thursday, June 19th, 2014 8:30pm 10. Can I vote? I vote yes. Signed, Marjorie Thursday, June 19th, 2014 9:49pm 11. FYI, this will be working soon in the Myth preprocessor (a PR is open https://github.com/segmentio/myth/pull/73 ) Signed, MoOx Friday, June 20th, 2014 3:25am 12. Pingback :: Friday, June 20th, 2014 4:53am Bruce Lawson's personal site : Reading List [...] CSS Working Group: Call for consensus: adding 'rebeccapurple' color to CSS Color Level 4 in memoriam Rebecca Meyer [...] 13. I too vote Yes. Also happy to see that it has already been included in WebKit. Also thanks Eric for the contribution you have made to the web. Right from your book on CodeIgniter to the CSS reset and your articles, all of them has been an encouragement for us to learn new things and implement it across web sites. Respect ! Signed, Tiji Friday, June 20th, 2014 6:01am 14. What a lovely gesture by the masses. Bless. Signed, Kristine Friday, June 20th, 2014 8:00am 15. I have the Mozilla Firefox source I pulled from the mercurial repos- I am editing the aurora branch and will start over with rebeccapurple instead of becca. Could anyone that already has commit privileges contact me for the updates? It might be a while after I am done before I can put the changes through. Signed, Brad Chesney Friday, June 20th, 2014 8:17pm 16. I love the color. Used it in the header of this page for the summer. Nothing wrong with a color value expressing more than machine notation. It can be a semiotic. It can have semantic value. Signed, Don Ulrich Saturday, June 21st, 2014 10:16pm 17. This is stupid. People die. Some young. Some tragically. This sets a port precedent that anyone with a sob story can have a color named after them. Name the street where she lived after her, her school, but this has nothing to do with the web, programming, or anything else in anyone else's life. Signed, Gerard Jeronowitz Sunday, June 22nd, 2014 2:32am 18. Pingback :: Sunday, June 22nd, 2014 4:11am Adding 'rebeccapurple' Color to CSS Color Level 4 -- Pixel Envy [...] See also Eric Meyer himself on why it's rebeccapurple and not beccapurple as initially [...] 19. Congratulations on having the proposal accepted! Just a fitting way to have Rebecca forever embedded in our lives. Signed, Carlos Sunday, June 22nd, 2014 6:47am 20. Eric, I have known your name for many years, but this is the first time I have visited your site. I am truly sorry to read of Rebecca's passing. As we say in Israel - "May the Heavens comfort you" (though we say it in Hebrew...). Our words probably cannot give consolation, but know that He in Heaven can, and will, console you all - at the same time without taking away any off the happiness - or sadness - that Rebecca brought into your lives. Signed, moshe Sunday, June 22nd, 2014 7:43am 21. Pingback :: Monday, June 23rd, 2014 1:14pm Code/red: Keith Alexander's New Plan -- Backdoors in Dumb Banker Wallets | Re/code [...] a proposal sent to social media, it [was] suggested [we] add the named color 'rebeccapurple', for value #663399, to CSS Color Level 4. This is a tribute to Eric Meyer's daughter [...] 22. I can't even read a few sentences without crying. All the best for you and may your little princess rest in piece. At my dad's funeral I said: as long as there's someone thinking of you you are still alive for me. I don't know if you believe in God, but ... may he bless You and Your family ... :( Signed, Clemens Monday, June 23rd, 2014 1:44pm 23. Kat, I don't know you at all but I am sending you all the strength you can muster. This month has not been kind to you and your family and I'm so sorry. Signed, Kimberly Monday, June 23rd, 2014 2:09pm 24. God save your souls. Even the death of Rebecca was more than anybody could imagine. Thinking of you... Signed, Harald Tuesday, June 24th, 2014 9:44am 25. I know it's late but: May HaShem comfort you, your wife and the other children among the mourners of Zion and Jerusalem. You have given so much to so many, and I know how very very hard things are right now. She was such a lovely child. I feel your loss and am very glad that RebeccaPurple got through. Signed, Sheina Yeheskel Wednesday, June 25th, 2014 6:34am 26. Pingback :: Wednesday, June 25th, 2014 6:36am rebeccapurple added to the CSS specification. - EpicWebs [...] http://meyerweb.com/eric/thoughts/2014/06/19/rebeccapurple/ [...] 27. Sorry to hear about your loss. A color in her honor is I'm sure a pale tribute to her, but it is a heartfelt tribute from a community that has been inspired and helped so much through your work. As a father, I deeply sympathize. Sincerely, Chris van Hasselt Signed, Chris van Hasselt Wednesday, June 25th, 2014 11:06am 28. What a wonderful idea to name a color after Rebecca. She probably never knew what a huge impact you have had on the development and evolution of CSS and the way browsers "see" colors. This little gift to you in her name from the W3C and CSS community is so beautifully appropriate. I will think of her and your family every time I see #663399. :-) Signed, Roberta Thursday, June 26th, 2014 4:59pm 29. Yesterday evening I drove through fields of rye the colour of light purple from masses of rye flowers in the setting sun. That made me think of Rebecca. Of course I never knew her - or as of yet - any of you in person but it still made the moment more special. I hope you don't mind me sharing this with you. Signed, hawkse Friday, June 27th, 2014 6:22am 30. Pingback :: Saturday, June 28th, 2014 4:51am rebeccapurple > Wang Luo Bao Min Jacky's Blog [...] Yi Lian Chuan Ji Nian Huo Dong Hou ,Web Kai Fa Jie Yi Jiang Ci Se Ding Ming Wei rebeccapurple. [...] 31. Pingback :: Tuesday, July 8th, 2014 12:44am Small world; Release Notes; Connections; Purple [...] Rebecca now has a CSS color. One of only a few -- less than 200 from all the 16 million possible ones. All of the browsers are implementing it as well. [...] 32. Pingback :: Friday, August 22nd, 2014 2:01pm Sass 3.4 is Out! [...] the new rebeccapurple color (#663399) has been added and is now treated as any other color in Sass. This, as a tribute to (CSS Legend) Eric A. Meyer's daughter, whose favourite color was purple, and who [...] 33. Pingback :: Monday, August 25th, 2014 7:16pm Rebeccapurple = #663399 | White Rabbit Studio [...] rebeccapurple en hommage a Rebecca Alison Meyer disparue dans sa sixieme annee. Son pere Eric meyer, consultant en web design influent, est de longue date implique dans l'amelioration des [...] 34. Pingback :: Tuesday, September 30th, 2014 9:23am Purple Prose | An Earth Without Grammar [...] colour #663399 as "beccapurple." Eric Meyer accepted the offered tribute, his only intervention being that if the community elected to adopt the name, it be "rebeccapurple" [...] 35. Pingback :: Wednesday, October 1st, 2014 5:15pm rebeccapurple | Ian Channing [...] site's background is rebeccapurple, its based on the memory of Eric Meyer's daughter. I have a daughter of two, so reading his tales of anguish are deeply [...] 36. Pingback :: Tuesday, October 7th, 2014 6:28am | Oli Young [...] Eric's Archived Thoughts: rebeccapurple [...] 37. Pingback :: Monday, October 27th, 2014 12:04pm A colophon for bias | Cooper Hewitt Labs [...] In reply Eric Meyer wrote: [...] 38. Pingback :: Thursday, October 30th, 2014 3:47am Vampire Weekend [?] Spunky Gidget [...] couple of weeks before she died, Rebecca informed us that she was about to be a big girl of six years old, and Becca was a baby name. Once [...] 39. Pingback :: Friday, January 30th, 2015 5:06pm Rebecca, il colore viola e i fogli di stile | Storie Digitali [...] Aggiornamento del 19/06/2014 WebKit e quel componente del browser (Safari e Opera) che interpreta le pagine web. Dal 18 giugno questo motore di rendering riconosce il nome "rebeccapurple" come nome utile a contrassegnare la tripletta esadecimale #663399. Il nome dunque risulta essere stato modificato rispetto alla proposta originaria (da "beccapurple" a "rebeccapurple"). Questa, del resto, e stata l'unica condizione che Eric Meyer ha posto nel caso in cui si proc.... [...] 40. Pingback :: Tuesday, March 8th, 2016 10:51am Sara Wachter-Boettcher | Design for Real Life [...] The cover simply had to be #663399becca [...] 41. Pingback :: Monday, May 23rd, 2016 5:27pm What's the Deal With CSS Colour Names? - d2dev_ [...] Rebeccapurple: As mentioned above, this colour was named after a girl who died very young. There is a touching story written by someone close to her here: http://meyerweb.com/eric/ thoughts/2014/06/19/rebeccapurple/ [...] 42. Pingback :: Thursday, October 19th, 2017 2:44pm Rebeccapurple + Spirit Day - Old Ain't Dead [...] always used purple on my blog in honor of Eric Meyers' daughter Rebecca, who died at age 6. Nobody knew that but me, but I'm aware of it each time I open my [...] 43. Pingback :: Saturday, December 29th, 2018 8:42am Hello Website! - blog.quincey.photography [...] information from, it's a heart breaking but at the same time uplifting read. You can also read Erics own blog about [...] Add Your Thoughts * Trackback URL * Comments RSS feed' Name [ ] E-mail (required but not displayed) [ ] URI (optional) [ ] Meyerweb dot com reserves the right to edit or remove any comment, especially when abusive or irrelevant to the topic at hand. HTML allowed: 
 

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