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Pantsuit: The Hillary Clinton UI Pattern Library

41 points by rimunroe 10y ago

Leszek 10y ago
When I saw the title, I assumed this was satirical. By the time I reached the end, I became entirely uncertain. Is this a genuine post that happens to be a bit amusingly self-aware, or full-blown Poe's law satire?
- wccrawford 10y ago
  I think it's the former, but I'm really not sure.
- degenerate 10y ago
  It looks like too much effort to be fake/satire. Either way, there is nothing remarkable about this blog post. It seems more of an agenda-pushing and recruiting post than a technology show-how. Sadly it doesn't matter what technology, design, or dev team you throw behind the woman, she is still a horrible person: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j2fWfNR4FsA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j2fWfNR4FsA
- WorldMaker 10y ago
  Seems to be genuine and amusingly self-aware. Specifically see the animated gif towards the top referring to decision to use the name "Pantsuit" for the framework.
- alexcarroll 10y ago
  It is legit - Mina (author) is a former coworker of mine. Miss working with her!
ng12 10y ago
I don't get it. They used CSS with some naming conventions -- what's interesting about this? There's not even a link to code.
- wccrawford 10y ago
  They link to DevProgress, which links to https://github.com/devprogress/ https://github.com/devprogress/ but I don't see the code there. It sounds like they're fishing for volunteers, but aren't aiming to be open source yet. Assuming this is all real and not some kind of joke.
- Liron 10y ago
  Read the title of the post - it's about their UI pattern library. Her UI components look good, plus the tech choices she made around HTML+CSS may be valuable to copy for anyone doing a high-accessibility content-oriented site.
  - ng12 10y ago
    As a professional web developer this article was free of any useful insights -- if there's something interesting about Pantsuit I'm failing to see it. It might help if they put some stuff on GitHub, but as it stands this is article seems to be just PR.
    - Liron 10y ago
      I'm a professional web developer too. Sure code would be nice, but I learned these lessons: (1) kss-node exists and looks like a great documentation tool, (2) campaigns need to design around accessibility which means they care extra about making their rendered HTML+CSS semantic, (3) an input form is a good example of something that you can skin with different stylesheets without too much headache.
cjslep 10y ago
I had a horrifying flashback to millions of lines of Hungarian Notation in Fortran and C++ when she described the prefixing for CSS classes. I'm not a frontend developer, but is that really a good practice?
- WorldMaker 10y ago
  It's a common practice, particularly because CSS doesn't have easy to use namespaces or modules. Maybe not a "good" practice, because yeah so much as anything it's a sign that maybe we've reached the natural bounds of the CSS language and it's time to look into making it better.
- adamlett 10y ago
  The reason Hungarian Notation is considered bad practice is that it encodes in a variable name what is already, or at least ought to be, encoded in the variable’s type. CSS is not really a programming language, and it doesn't really have types.
  - hackinthebochs 10y ago
    I never really understood the resistance to Hungarian notation. It greatly helps when you have large numbers of variables where their declaration is disconnected from their use (especially useful in languages like C++). That the information is redundant isn't a knock against it, it greatly reduces the friction in obtaining critical information about the variable. It certainly made reading windows code a 100x easier.
    - WorldMaker 10y ago
      The resistance has as much to do with the idea that the need to use something like hungarian notation in the first place is a failure of your tools/libraries. If that type information is so important, why isn't the compiler checking that type for you? Why can't your IDE follow the flow of that variable all the way back to its declaration and jump you to the declaration or provide tooltips/color-coding/"auto-hungarian"? It's easy to posit that the general prevalence of hungarian notation in early C/C++ is something of a clear indicator of deficiencies in the C/C++ languages themselves at the time. Why solve coding problems with cultural conventions and human dogma, when you can automate it or make a better language with a more formal type system?
irunbackwards 10y ago
All I got from this is Hillary needs Trump(s).
jbob2000 10y ago
There's nothing in this article. Name spacing CSS? Ok... thanks? Feels like an attempt at the Hillary camp to reach out to the developer voters.
fil_a_del_fee_a 10y ago
I just threw up a little...
- dang 10y ago
  Please don't do this here.

41 points by rimunroe 10y ago

When I saw the title, I assumed this was satirical. By the time I reached the end, I became entirely uncertain. Is this a genuine post that happens to be a bit amusingly self-aware, or full-blown Poe's law satire?

wccrawford 10y ago
I think it's the former, but I'm really not sure.
degenerate 10y ago
It looks like too much effort to be fake/satire. Either way, there is nothing remarkable about this blog post. It seems more of an agenda-pushing and recruiting post than a technology show-how. Sadly it doesn't matter what technology, design, or dev team you throw behind the woman, she is still a horrible person: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j2fWfNR4FsA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j2fWfNR4FsA
WorldMaker 10y ago
Seems to be genuine and amusingly self-aware. Specifically see the animated gif towards the top referring to decision to use the name "Pantsuit" for the framework.
alexcarroll 10y ago
It is legit - Mina (author) is a former coworker of mine. Miss working with her!

ng12 10y ago

I don't get it. They used CSS with some naming conventions -- what's interesting about this? There's not even a link to code.

wccrawford 10y ago
They link to DevProgress, which links to https://github.com/devprogress/ https://github.com/devprogress/ but I don't see the code there. It sounds like they're fishing for volunteers, but aren't aiming to be open source yet. Assuming this is all real and not some kind of joke.
Liron 10y ago
Read the title of the post - it's about their UI pattern library. Her UI components look good, plus the tech choices she made around HTML+CSS may be valuable to copy for anyone doing a high-accessibility content-oriented site.
- ng12 10y ago
  As a professional web developer this article was free of any useful insights -- if there's something interesting about Pantsuit I'm failing to see it. It might help if they put some stuff on GitHub, but as it stands this is article seems to be just PR.
  - Liron 10y ago
    I'm a professional web developer too. Sure code would be nice, but I learned these lessons: (1) kss-node exists and looks like a great documentation tool, (2) campaigns need to design around accessibility which means they care extra about making their rendered HTML+CSS semantic, (3) an input form is a good example of something that you can skin with different stylesheets without too much headache.

cjslep 10y ago

I had a horrifying flashback to millions of lines of Hungarian Notation in Fortran and C++ when she described the prefixing for CSS classes. I'm not a frontend developer, but is that really a good practice?

WorldMaker 10y ago
It's a common practice, particularly because CSS doesn't have easy to use namespaces or modules. Maybe not a "good" practice, because yeah so much as anything it's a sign that maybe we've reached the natural bounds of the CSS language and it's time to look into making it better.
adamlett 10y ago
The reason Hungarian Notation is considered bad practice is that it encodes in a variable name what is already, or at least ought to be, encoded in the variable’s type. CSS is not really a programming language, and it doesn't really have types.
- hackinthebochs 10y ago
  I never really understood the resistance to Hungarian notation. It greatly helps when you have large numbers of variables where their declaration is disconnected from their use (especially useful in languages like C++). That the information is redundant isn't a knock against it, it greatly reduces the friction in obtaining critical information about the variable. It certainly made reading windows code a 100x easier.
  - WorldMaker 10y ago
    The resistance has as much to do with the idea that the need to use something like hungarian notation in the first place is a failure of your tools/libraries. If that type information is so important, why isn't the compiler checking that type for you? Why can't your IDE follow the flow of that variable all the way back to its declaration and jump you to the declaration or provide tooltips/color-coding/"auto-hungarian"? It's easy to posit that the general prevalence of hungarian notation in early C/C++ is something of a clear indicator of deficiencies in the C/C++ languages themselves at the time. Why solve coding problems with cultural conventions and human dogma, when you can automate it or make a better language with a more formal type system?

irunbackwards 10y ago

All I got from this is Hillary needs Trump(s).

jbob2000 10y ago

There's nothing in this article. Name spacing CSS? Ok... thanks? Feels like an attempt at the Hillary camp to reach out to the developer voters.

fil_a_del_fee_a 10y ago

I just threw up a little...

dang 10y ago
Please don't do this here.