CSS degrees – when standards aren’t standard

While reading through an article about CSS3 gradients the other day, I noticed that the angular degrees for linear gradients increase in an anti-clockwise direction. This seemed odd because the CSS3 rotation property increases degrees clockwise.

To check that this inconsistency was indeed the case, I made a quick test case: http://jsfiddle.net/gilmoreorless/9SVvm/1/

It looks to me like the two modules of the new specification were developed in complete isolation from each other, which doesn’t give me confidence in the “new saviour” of CSS3 standards. If the makers of the specification can’t be consistent, how can we expect the same of the browser implementations?