What is the value of the css 'ex' unit?

Question

(Not to be confused with Xunit, a popular .Net unit testing library.)

Today in a fit of boredom I started inspecting Gmails DOM (yes, I was very bored).

Ever

Answer 1

The value of having it in the CSS spec, if that's what you're really asking, is exactly the same as the value of having the em unit.

It enables you to set fonts to relative sizes.

You don't know what my base font size is. So one good strategy for web design is to set font sizes which are relative, rather than absolute; the equivalent of "double your normal size" or "a little smaller than your normal size" rather than a fixed size like "ten pixels".