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While these are really just boilerplate snippets for some common layouts, you can easily have an actual algorithm for CSS, too. For instance complex recipes/tri
by ivanhoe 8y ago
While these are really just boilerplate snippets for some common layouts, you can easily have an actual algorithm for CSS, too. For instance complex recipes/tricks for selecting just some of the nodes using different combinations of n-th child and sibling selectors are definitely algorithms, offering very generalized list of steps to follow to implement the logic on any number of elements.
- pault 8y agoI guess I can concede that. If you can compose an algorithm using a flow-based visual programming language I suppose you can consider a series of selectors an algorithm for applying styles, but by that logic every selector is an algorithm.
- ivanhoe 8y agoFor me algorithm is simply an explanation/strategy of a list of steps needed to implement some logic and/or solve some problem. IMO it can even be a paper with IKEA instructions how to assemble a desk. Might not seem so, but if you'd tried to program a robot to do it, you'd probably call those steps the desk building algorithm. However I wouldn't call every css selector an algorithm on its own, just like print() function is not an algorithm - but if we have a routine to print say only odd numbers, that is definitely the (very simple) algorithm. Equally if you come up with a recipe how to combine css selectors into a series of rules to select e.g. N particular elements in an arbitrary list of DOM nodes, in my mind it's the full-blown algorithm too. Just my $.02 of course...