Whatever works for you
I was one of the panelists on the most recent episode of the Shop Talk Show along with Nicole, Colin Megill, and Jed Schmidt. The topic was inline styles. Well, not quite. That’s not a great term to describe the concept. The idea is that you apply styling directly to DOM nodes using JavaScript, instead of using CSS selectors to match up styles to DOM nodes.
It’s an interesting idea that I could certainly imagine being useful in certain situations such as dynamically updating an interface in real time (it feels a bit more “close to the metal” to reflect the state updates directly rather than doing it via class swapping). But there are many, many other situations where the cascade is very useful indeed.
I expressed concern that styling via JavaScript raises the barrier to styling from a declarative language like CSS to a programming language (although, as they pointed out, it’s more like moving from CSS to JSON). I asked whether it might not be possible to add just one more layer of abstraction so that people could continue to write in CSS—which they’re familiar with—and then do JavaScript magic to match those selectors, extract those styles, and apply them directly to the DOM nodes. Since recording the podcast, I came across Glen Maddern’s proposal to do exactly that. It makes sense to me try to solve the perceived problems with CSS—issues of scope and specificity—without asking everyone to change the way they write.
In short, my response was “hey, like, whatever, it’s cool, each to their own.” There are many, many different kinds of websites and many, many different ways to make them. I like that.
So I was kind of surprised by the bullishness of those who seem to honestly believe that this is the way to build on the web, and that CSS will become a relic. At one point I even asked directly, “Do you really believe that CSS is over? That all styles will be managed through JavaScript from here on?” and received an emphatic “Yes!” in response.
I find that a little disheartening. Chris has written about the confidence of youth:
Discussions are always worth having. Weighing options is always interesting. Demonstrating what has worked (and what hasn’t) for you is always useful. There are ways to communicate that don’t resort to dogmatism.
There are big differences between saying:
- You can do this,
- You should do this, and
- You must do this.
My take on the inline styles discussion was that it fits firmly in the “you can do this” slot. It could be a very handy tool to have in your toolbox for certain situations. But ideally your toolbox should have many other tools. When all you have is a hammer, yadda, yadda, yadda, nail.
I don’t think you do your cause any favours by jumping straight to the “you must do this” stage. I think that people are more amenable to hearing “hey, here’s something that worked for me; maybe it will work for you” rather than “everything you know is wrong and this is the future.” I certainly don’t think that it’s helpful to compare CSS to Neanderthals co-existing with JavaScript Homo Sapiens.
Like I said on the podcast, it’s a big web out there. The idea that there is “one true way” that would work on all possible projects seems unlikely—and undesirable.
“A ha!”, you may be thinking, “But you yourself talk about progressive enhancement as if it’s the one try way to build on the web—hoisted by your own petard.” Actually, I don’t. There are certainly situations where progressive enhancement isn’t workable—although I believe those cases are rarer than you might think. But my over-riding attitude towards any questions of web design and development is: