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Why bother with a CSS build process?

lucidchart.com

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Re: Why bother with a CSS build process?

#11

Post by imjared »

bendilts wrote: post #5
usingpond wrote: post #3

People who are actually concerned about exposing their amazing Javascript and CSS to the world probably don't have very amazing code to begin with.

People who aren't concerned about exposing their amazing Javascript and CSS to the world probably don't have very amazing jobs to begin with.

That's a pretty bold (and borderline offensive) statement. You're effectively thumbing your nose at anyone who develops open source projects and even more so, anyone who subscribes to a philosophy of the open-nature of the web.

Re: Why bother with a CSS build process?

#12

Post by zalew »

stringham wrote: post #2

1. You are exposing your source code to anyone who might be interested. I think that exposing your CSS source code with comments etc is more beneficial than detrimental. It helps us have a more open web and fosters an environment for new developers to learn from what's already great. However, the overhead of always sending down the full CSS probably isn't worth it since so few people are actually interested. http://d…

who needs reading a css file when you can inspect the rules in firebug and such, handpick them and even edit live? I can't remember when I opened one's css file from source.

Re: Why bother with a CSS build process?

#13

Post by acabal »

I disagree with the first point, the spirit of the web is to be open. The other points do make sense though.

On a side note, I'd really like to use LESS or an equivalent, but the way I design/develop (and I'm an admittedly bad designer) is to tweak things in CSS, alt-tab, refresh the browser, and see the changes instantly. Likewise I can open up Firebug and tweak some style to see how it would look, then apply that change to the CSS file directly. LESS/SASS would introduce a compilation step there and essentially break my workflow. Am I wrong or is there a way around that while still being able to use a more-sane language to sugar up CSS?

Re: Why bother with a CSS build process?

#14

Post by bendilts »

imjared wrote: post #11
bendilts wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People who aren't concerned about exposing their amazing Javascript and CSS to the world probably don't have very amazing jobs to begin with.

That's a pretty bold (and borderline offensive) statement. You're effectively thumbing your nose at anyone who develops open source projects and even more so, anyone who subscribes to a philosophy of the open-nature of the web.

I think you're taking my tongue-in-cheek reply to a troll a wee bit too seriously :-) We love open source at Lucidchart and employ a lot of people who contribute in meaningful ways to a variety of open-source projects.

Re: Why bother with a CSS build process?

#15

Post by zalew »

acabal wrote: post #13

I disagree with the first point, the spirit of the web is to be open. The other points do make sense though. On a side note, I'd really like to use LESS or an equivalent, but the way I design/develop (and I'm an admittedly bad designer) is to tweak things in CSS, alt-tab, refresh the browser, and see the changes instantly. Likewise I can open up Firebug and tweak some style to see how it would look, then apply that c…

> essentially break my workflow

compass has a watcher who compiles a new css when you change your sass/scss (if you like to copy-paste css, choose the scss syntax over sass), less has a less.js to compile client-side during dev.

Re: Why bother with a CSS build process?

#16

Post by bonzoesc »

acabal wrote: post #13

I disagree with the first point, the spirit of the web is to be open. The other points do make sense though. On a side note, I'd really like to use LESS or an equivalent, but the way I design/develop (and I'm an admittedly bad designer) is to tweak things in CSS, alt-tab, refresh the browser, and see the changes instantly. Likewise I can open up Firebug and tweak some style to see how it would look, then apply that c…

There are many tools that automate the compile step. I've used the "guard" Ruby gem, the built-in compass watcher, flat out built static sites in Rails which recompiles on demand, and played with JetBrains WebStorm which can even do some tricky live reloading stuff (cutting out both the compile and refresh browser steps). In the past I've also used emacs, which could be set up to have a key combination save and immediately compile.

Re: Why bother with a CSS build process?

#18

Post by PavlovsCat »

bendilts wrote: post #14
imjared wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a pretty bold (and borderline offensive) statement. You're effectively thumbing your nose at anyone who develops open source projects and even more so, anyone who subscribes to a philosophy of the open-nature of the web.

I think you're taking my tongue-in-cheek reply to a troll a wee bit too seriously :-) We love open source at Lucidchart and employ a lot of people who contribute in meaningful ways to a variety of open-source projects.

What makes the original post not tongue-in-cheek, and your reply not a troll? Telepathy?

Re: Why bother with a CSS build process?

#19

Post by BaconJuice »

bendilts wrote: post #14
imjared wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a pretty bold (and borderline offensive) statement. You're effectively thumbing your nose at anyone who develops open source projects and even more so, anyone who subscribes to a philosophy of the open-nature of the web.

I think you're taking my tongue-in-cheek reply to a troll a wee bit too seriously :-) We love open source at Lucidchart and employ a lot of people who contribute in meaningful ways to a variety of open-source projects.

Then what was your explanation behind your previous statement?

Re: Why bother with a CSS build process?

#20

Post by hcarvalhoalves »

acabal wrote: post #13

I disagree with the first point, the spirit of the web is to be open. The other points do make sense though. On a side note, I'd really like to use LESS or an equivalent, but the way I design/develop (and I'm an admittedly bad designer) is to tweak things in CSS, alt-tab, refresh the browser, and see the changes instantly. Likewise I can open up Firebug and tweak some style to see how it would look, then apply that c…

Include less.js while developing and it will compile LESS on the fly [1]. Then you just have to compile/minify the LESS files into CSS when you build your project and push to the server.

[1] http://lesscss.org

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