Poll: should CSS become more like a programming language?

Default avatar.
November 04, 2016
Poll: should CSS become more like a programming language?.
I’ve made no secret of my love for LESS. It was my first CSS pre-processor, and still my favorite, even as pragmatism pushes me towards SASS. The addition of variables, mixins, selector nesting, and advanced calculations to CSS just blew my mind. And while the enhanced versatility and ease of writing CSS was much appreciated, I was especially excited about the potential for the increased separation of content from presentation. That was the purpose of CSS from the very beginning, and it’s a cause I can believe in. Content may be the most important part of the design, but you shouldn’t have to code it that way. I remember the days of table layouts, and they were dark. Now, at long last, developers have discovered CSS too. (I’m mostly kidding...) They have brought many valuable contributions — like the aforementioned preprocessors — and raised a few issues of their own. Many feel that CSS isn’t object-oriented enough, or even just generally programmer-friendly enough. They’ve addressed this issue with frameworks, tools, and even the occasional library for defining CSS rules in JavaScript. Okay, most of those were made as a joke. Still, it’s a bit of a trend. There is a movement, though not an organized one (that I know of), to make CSS look a whole lot more like a programming language. And I’m talking about basic CSS, with no preprocessors involved. This would, in many ways, increase CSS’ potential massively. It could also result in less CSS needing to be written. On the downside, I’m bad at programming, and a lot of other designers are too. Also, what we gain in smaller file sizes could be mitigated by the increase in computing power needed to render the results of that CSS. It would all come down to whether the programming-related features complement or replace the current layout and styling aspects of CSS. So, what do you think?

Ezequiel Bruni

Ezequiel Bruni is a web/UX designer, blogger, and aspiring photographer living in Mexico. When he’s not up to his finely-chiselled ears in wire-frames and front-end code, or ranting about the same, he indulges in beer, pizza, fantasy novels, and stand-up comedy.

Read Next

15 Best New Fonts, July 2024

Welcome to our monthly roundup of the best fonts we’ve found online in the last four weeks. This month, there are fewer…

20 Best New Websites, July 2024

Welcome to July’s round up of websites to inspire you. This month’s collection ranges from the most stripped-back…

Top 7 WordPress Plugins for 2024: Enhance Your Site's Performance

WordPress is a hands-down favorite of website designers and developers. Renowned for its flexibility and ease of use,…

Exciting New Tools for Designers, July 2024

Welcome to this July’s collection of tools, gathered from around the web over the past month. We hope you’ll find…

3 Essential Design Trends, July 2024

Add some summer sizzle to your design projects with trendy website elements. Learn what's trending and how to use these…

15 Best New Fonts, June 2024

Welcome to our roundup of the best new fonts we’ve found online in the last month. This month, there are notably fewer…

20 Best New Websites, June 2024

Arranging content in an easily accessible way is the backbone of any user-friendly website. A good website will present…

Exciting New Tools for Designers, June 2024

In this month’s roundup of the best tools for web designers and developers, we’ll explore a range of new and noteworthy…

3 Essential Design Trends, June 2024

Summer is off to a fun start with some highly dramatic website design trends showing up in projects. Let's dive in!

15 Best New Fonts, May 2024

In this month’s edition, there are lots of historically-inspired typefaces, more of the growing trend for French…

How to Reduce The Carbon Footprint of Your Website

On average, a web page produces 4.61 grams of CO2 for every page view; for whole sites, that amounts to hundreds of KG…

20 Best New Websites, May 2024

Welcome to May’s compilation of the best sites on the web. This month we’re focused on color for younger humans,…