Breaking Good Habits

Talk first given at The Digital Barn (Barnsley, UK) 11 February, 2012.

Transcript

2. Breaking Good Habits Harry Roberts—@csswizardry
3. Harry who?! •Web designer/developer •Senior UI Developer—BSkyB •@csswizardry •csswizardry.com
4. Necessary explanation of the cheesy, overly- cryptic talk title.
5. Web standards… •A great idea? Definitely! •Well intentioned? You bet! •Ambiguous? Sadly :( •Open to interpretation? Unfortunately…
6. …web standards •Rules? Definitely not!
7. Best practices •Best for who? •What are we achieving? •What do we really want to achieve? •Are we always solving the right problems for the right people?
8. Good habits? •Avoiding classes and IDs •‘Handcrafting’ our CSS •Avoiding extra markup
9. Bad habits? •Classitis—using too many classes •Grid systems •Extra markup •‘Insemantic’ class names
10. We’ve been solving the wrong problems for the wrong people!
12. The 4 ‘-ility’s •Maintainability •Flexibility •Extensibility •Predictability
13. Maintainability
14. Flexibility
15. body > div:nth-of-type(2) > article:first- child > p:first-child{ font-size:1.2em } <p>Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet...</p>
16. Be ?#*@ing explicit!
17. .intro{ font-size:1.2em; } <p class=intro>Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet...</p>
18. Specific !== explicit
19. Extensibility
20. Extensible •Stop thinking in pages… •…think in components… •…then think in abstractions.
21. Predictability
22. Expect the unexpected Always build like your client’s CMS is a bulldozer…
24. CSS selectors
25. IDs •Don’t use IDs in CSS •Ever.
26. IDs •No advantage over classes. •Waaaaaay overly specific. •Not dissimilar to !important •Everything you can do with an ID can be done with a class.
27. Classes •No one uses classes except browsers and other developers (and microformats). •Classes are neither semantic or insemantic; they’re sensible or insensible.
29. .red .red{ color:red; } <h1>I am a <span class=red>designer</span> and <span class=red>developer</span></h1>
30. .red .red{ color:blue; /* WTF */ } <h1>I am a <span class=red>designer</span> and <span class=red>developer</span></h1>
31. .brand .brand{ color:#BADA55; /* FTW */ } <h1>I am a <span class=brand>designer</span> and <span class=brand>developer</span></h1>
33. Objects and abstractions
34. The media object bit.ly/cCY3Ew
35. The media object bit.ly/cCY3Ew
36. The media object bit.ly/cCY3Ew
37. The media object bit.ly/cCY3Ew
38. The media object bit.ly/cCY3Ew <div class=media> <img class=img> <p class=body>Lorem ipsum...</p> </div> .media,.body { overflow:hidden; } .img { float:left; margin-right:20px; } .img img { display:block; }
39. The media object bit.ly/cCY3Ew <div class=media> <img class=img> <div class=body> <p>Lorem ipsum...</p> <a href>Read more...</a> </div> </div>
41. Nicole Sullivan @stubbornella
42. The nav abstraction bit.ly/oD2M9n
43. .nav{ list-style:none; margin-left:0; } .nav li{ display:inline; } .nav a{ display:inline-block; } The nav abstraction bit.ly/oD2M9n
44. <ol class="nav breadcrumb">...</ol> .breadcrumb li:before{ content:"» "; } .breadcrumb li:first-child:before{ content:""; } Breadcrumbs…? bit.ly/oD2M9n
45. The island object bit.ly/oqQ7JJ
46. The island object bit.ly/oqQ7JJ <div class=island>...</div> .island{ padding:1.5em; } .island > :last-child{ margin-bottom:0; }
47. The island object bit.ly/oqQ7JJ <div class="island promo">...</div> .island.promo{ color:#fff; background-color:#C0FFEE; }
48. Double stranded heading hierarchy h1,.alpha { font-size:; line-height:; } h2,.beta { font-size:; line-height:; } h3,.gamma { font-size:; line-height:; } h4,.delta { font-size:; line-height:; } h5,.epsilon { font-size:; line-height:; } h6,.zeta { font-size:; line-height:; }
49. Double stranded heading hierarchy <div class=twitter> <h3 class=delta>Recent tweets</h3> ... </div>
51. Grid systems
53. Abstract layout into its own layer Keep components free of dimensions
54. csswizardry.com/fluid-grids
55. Straighten up! @media(max-width:480px){ .grid{ float:none; clear:both; width:auto; margin:0; } }
57. All together now!
68. Benefits and side- effects •Sites are faster to build… •…more robust •…more maintainable •…more consistent •…and incidentally more efficient.
69. Efficiency on the client side •Reused classes are ‘performance freebies’ •Abstractions mean DRYer code; less to download and evaluate •Classes match quicker than descendants
70. Now what? •Solve problems for the right people. •Keep yourselves happy and sane. •Learn when enough is enough; cut yourself some slack.
71. However bad you think it is, there’s always worse…
72. Breaking Good Habits •Harry Roberts – @csswizardry •csswizardry.com •Nicole Sullivan – @stubbornella