6 ms·

To me this just shows his lack of experience working with a big project where using things like variables and scoping things helps a lot. And what about mixins?

• BinaryIdiot 11y ago
  > To me this just shows his lack of experience working with a big project where using things like variables and scoping things helps a lot. Honestly depends on how you structure the HTML and CSS. I've worked on some very, very large projects stretching across 15 subcontractors and we did not use css preprocessors. It wasn't even an issue really. CSS is really great at cascading properly. Most of the times I've seen where people want to use variables could have been just as easily accomplished via inheriting from a top level style. But I'm not going to sit here and tell you you're an idiot for using CSS preprocessors. They serve a purpose. They work. Yes they complicate things further but if it helps you deliver faster I'm not going to complain...much :)
  • nailer 11y ago
    The general approach without using mixins is creating visual classes, which now means the look of say .login-box is determined in two places : the HTML where .login-box has visual classes added and the CSS for .login-box and whatever the visual classes are.
  • Akkuma 11y ago
    I'm hard pressed to believe the quality of the CSS across 15 subcontractors was actually good and consistent. You can't get 5 developers in a room without finding at least a few differences in opinion how something could or should be done and when it comes to CSS you have even more flexibility to how you're writing it and the associated markup. What was done to ensure similarity of HTML/CSS across such a large project?
    • BinaryIdiot 11y ago
      > I'm hard pressed to believe the quality of the CSS across 15 subcontractors was actually good and consistent. You can't get 5 developers in a room without finding at least a few differences in opinion how something could or should be done and when it comes to CSS you have even more flexibility to how you're writing it and the associated markup. Quality across more than 1 subcontractor for ANYTHING is rarely good. But the most important thing when dealing with large projects divided with multiple groups? Ownership. You make one group own the design / CSS. Then when others change their CSS it runs through them for reviews but they also supply guidelines for being consistent, etc. It's almost impossible to handle disparate groups without having centralized owners and people who create guidelines on how to do everything so it's consistent.
• wallacoloo 11y ago
  > I can't imaging maintaining a big site using regular css It wasn't that long ago that nobody used [the current big-name] CSS preprocessors. But site admins got along fine, and I certainly didn't hear many complaints. To each their own, but I don't find maintaining a big site with 'regular' css unimaginable.
  • agnivade 11y ago
    I don't think that is OP's point here. Just because something works doesn't mean you should not improve it. You might get habituated with regular css. But things improve SO much when you use pre-processors.
  • viraptor 11y ago
    > But site admins got along fine Apart from those who generated css dynamically. And those who hated the situation enough to create preprocessors to improve their lives. "Before X people were ok without X" is a tautology.
    • coldtea 11y ago
      >"Before X people were ok without X" is a tautology. No, it's not. Sometimes new techniques appear without anybody feeling there was a problem in the first place. Other times they appear after people struggle and curse their way without them. "Before X people were ok without X" only refers to the first case, so it's not a tautology applicable to all cases before X. E.g. people always struggled with webpage layout, and knew they needed a solution X to appear, even before an X emerged.
  • Lazare 11y ago
    > It wasn't that long ago that nobody used [the current big-name] CSS preprocessors. But site admins got along fine, and I certainly didn't hear many complaints. If life was fine without preprocessors, then why did they see such rapid adoption?
    • sgift 11y ago
• olavgg 11y ago
  I've written CSS for over 10 years, and I don't use preprocessors at all. I've written small web pages, e-commerce sites, enterprise applications with tens of thousand users. And I find it really offending that you think this is because of lack of experience. I don't care about mixins, variables, a few instances of duplicated code and my clients doesn't care about any of the code under the hood. In fact they care about time to market, and that is something I am exceptionally good at in my area. In fact variables has always been possible with multiple class names. The discussion about what we should choose between traditional CSS, SASS and LESS is on the same level as what color the bike shed should have. http://bikeshed.com/ http://bikeshed.com/ Pick one and be happy, neither is better or worse. When you're building web applications, CSS is least of your problems.
  • deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
• toomanythings2 11y ago
  The author has been a well known, though low key, source since I began in 2004 and I've been following him since. His about page says he's been developing for the web since it began so, no, he does not lack experience.
  • websitescenes 11y ago
    Experience seems to be what's holding him back in this case. I've always done it this way soo... As developers and engineers, we have to be ready to change our assumptions and workflows to adapt to new technology.
    • toomanythings2 11y ago
      You presume that he needs to change but give no reason to do so other than you think your way is better. He says his is better and a lot of people, including myself and a well-publicized recent article, feel the same way. We think your path is the wrong way and will cause you problems as time goes on.
      • websitescenes 11y ago
        Speed, maintainability, modularity and readability are all good reasons. I'm sure that there are many more reasons but these are just off the top of my head.
    • coldtea 11y ago
      >Experience seems to be what's holding him back in this case. We can only say that it's "holding him back" only if we can show that he doesn't get the same results as SASS users, in the same amount of time.
      • websitescenes 11y ago
        They are not same results. One code base is monolithic and hard to maintain while the other is modular and simple to update and maintain.