h5bp/html5-boilerplate — comment on commit aa0396eae757c9e03dda4e463fb0d4db5a5f82d7
File:  line 0
By necolas:

This method was devised based on the white-space hiding that @jonathantneal and I used in [an experiment on containing floats](http://nicolasgallagher.com/better-float-containment-in-ie/). I've been using it for image replacement in production ever since and it has performed well and even avoids certain IE7 bugs when used with `display:inline-block` elements.

I've subsequently found that an early version of this method was documented as far back as 2003: http://www.maxdesign.com.au/articles/headings-as-images/

The `color: transparent` consideration was suggested by @chriseppstein; we could do with some mobile testing to find out if it is necessary.

The super-short font-family `a` in the `font` shorthand property is a clever idea taken from the [BEM implementation of this method](https://github.com/bem/bem-bl/blob/master/blocks-desktop/b-icon/b-icon.css).

And thanks to @scottkellum for sparking another discussion about IR techniques.