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> 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 g

> 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
  Why did NoSQL, programming language of the week, etc. see such rapid adoption before they died out again / moved back to their specialist niches? Shiny new toys, everyone loves them. For a while.
  - lowmess 11y ago
    Sass is nearly 10 years old. LESS first appeared in 2009. This is beyond shiny; these are mature, well-supported tools.
sangnoir 11y ago
> But site admins got along fine, and I certainly didn't hear many complaints. Using tables for layouts was once state of the art as well with no complaints. Things change, as do best practices. You can use inheritance to reuse values without preprocessors, or you can switch to preprocessors and use variables and mixins for composition. The question of which is better (inheritance vs. composition) is a personal one, I prefer composition.
wallacoloo 11y ago
I think my point was missed by most of the replies to this comment. That's likely my fault - I should have been more explicit: I'm not arguing for or against CSS preprocessors here. I'm trying to point out that one shouldn't have difficulty imagining coding a site with regular css. It's every bit doable, it has been done widely in the past and it is in fact still done today. In some cases - perhaps many - it's not ideal, sure. But when OP says that not using these tools is unimaginable, I see that as a lack of effort on his/her part into trying to understand the point of view of the people who don't use them. If I was a LESS user and somebody said, "I can't imagine a case where you'd want that tool", I would scoff at them because there are plenty of examples out there (and in this thread), and their statement shows that they're really not even trying to understand my point of view. If they instead said, "I can understand why you think you need that tool, but ..." then I wouldn't have a problem because they have made an effort into understanding my point of view (and they can at least imagine using my workflow in their head, even if they don't like the idea). This may be pedantic - after reading OP's post again, it seems possible that OP wasn't being literal about the imagination thing. But that didn't occur to me at the time of writing.

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
Why did NoSQL, programming language of the week, etc. see such rapid adoption before they died out again / moved back to their specialist niches? Shiny new toys, everyone loves them. For a while.
- lowmess 11y ago
  Sass is nearly 10 years old. LESS first appeared in 2009. This is beyond shiny; these are mature, well-supported tools.

sangnoir 11y ago

> But site admins got along fine, and I certainly didn't hear many complaints. Using tables for layouts was once state of the art as well with no complaints. Things change, as do best practices. You can use inheritance to reuse values without preprocessors, or you can switch to preprocessors and use variables and mixins for composition. The question of which is better (inheritance vs. composition) is a personal one, I prefer composition.

wallacoloo 11y ago

I think my point was missed by most of the replies to this comment. That's likely my fault - I should have been more explicit: I'm not arguing for or against CSS preprocessors here. I'm trying to point out that one shouldn't have difficulty imagining coding a site with regular css. It's every bit doable, it has been done widely in the past and it is in fact still done today. In some cases - perhaps many - it's not ideal, sure. But when OP says that not using these tools is unimaginable, I see that as a lack of effort on his/her part into trying to understand the point of view of the people who don't use them. If I was a LESS user and somebody said, "I can't imagine a case where you'd want that tool", I would scoff at them because there are plenty of examples out there (and in this thread), and their statement shows that they're really not even trying to understand my point of view. If they instead said, "I can understand why you think you need that tool, but ..." then I wouldn't have a problem because they have made an effort into understanding my point of view (and they can at least imagine using my workflow in their head, even if they don't like the idea). This may be pedantic - after reading OP's post again, it seems possible that OP wasn't being literal about the imagination thing. But that didn't occur to me at the time of writing.