Jason Knight

The less code you use, the less there is to break

Dec 12, 2018

I wouldn't do anything more than change them from #333333 to #333... why?

1) you might change your mind and want them different colours.

2) because the colours are assigned to different attributes on different elements, anything you do to it is going to be more code.

See nonsense like HTML/CSS "frameworks" that make you use two to ten times the HTML needed to do the job; or CSS pre-processors (LESS/SASS/SCSS) that result in writing as much if not more code than you'd have without it that then results in twice the CSS on deployment! Yet then the fanboys make wild unfounded claims these train wrecks of how not to use HTML or CSS make the process easier, or simpler, or "aids in collaboration" or some other made up fairy tale not based in anything remotely resembling reality.

No matter what anyone tells you more code is rarely simpler or easier. Two to ten times the code? Forget it.

Bottom line, that's as simple as it gets. You want to change them en-masse search/replace in your editor is your friend.

Hanah Steven

Dec 12, 2018

Jason Knight , I'm relieved to know that it wasn't considered redundant and that I don't need to worry about it.

Your comments about Sass is interesting. I looked into it at some point, but I just find it easier to edit CSS without them for some reason.

Hanah Steven

Your comments about Sass is interesting. I looked into it at some point, but I just find it easier to edit CSS without them for some reason.

That's a pretty good indicator that you've been learning to use HTML and CSS properly. If you've embraced semantic markup, separation of presentation from content, and a host of other good practices you find that CSS pre-processors are a bald-faced lie in terms of being "easier" or "improvement".

The only way any of the claims made about them seems to hold any weight is for codebases that are slopped together out of ignorance or ineptitude, where they use 60-100k of HTML to do 16k or less' job, 512k of CSS to do 48k or less' job, and multiple megabytes of JavaScript on websites that often don't even warrant the presence of scripting, much less anything more than 48k of it.

The same people who seem to think all this front-end framework rubbish is actually useful or is how things should be done; when all they do is teach bad habits and make people work harder, not smarter.

Aka the people who see nothing wrong with saying class="text-red text-shadow box-shadow centered col-4-s col-6-m col-8-l" -- the HTML/CSS equivalent of going full Pakled. You never go full Pakled.

Jason Knight, I resonate with your comments about frameworks because, quite frankly, I looked into Bootstrap at some point and found it to be overly complicated and near-sighted. It doesn't seem to consider the fact that a block of contents in a page might or might not be three columns in the future when it's time to redesign. Or, "a.button" link might not be a button six months later due to design changes. I would much rather give each section a semantic name that describes what it is so I could do all the style manipulations in CSS. That way, I won't have to change HTML code at all to make any styling and layout changes. Isn't that the point of Cascading Style Sheet? And those Bootstrap buttons, "Jumbotron," etc. Sure, I get the idea that they are trying to create a way for people to tag HTML to tell it to look like something. But, as a designer, I want every site to be unique. I can see myself writing a bunch of overrides if I used Bootstrap. That to me is like downloading some free business letter template and trying to make it sound like I wrote it. It just never works that well, and I don't know how that's easier and faster than writing several lines of standard CSS to make it look exactly the way I want from scratch.

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