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Discussion on: Case against premade CSS frameworks (and Design systems)

 
erebos-manannan profile image
Erebos Manannán

Well you're doing exactly the opposite of what you're preaching.

You're saying people should be open to new ideas, yet you stick to the ancient practices of doing everything yourself from scratch, instead of embracing the relatively new idea of CSS frameworks, and that they can be very beneficial also outside of prototypes and internal components.

You seem to assume I've not given a try to building styles from the scratch. I have, many times, before and after the popularity of CSS frameworks. When the first widespread CSS frameworks came out I agreed with what you're preaching now. They were not very good, and people ended up completely locking into someone else's style. Things are quite different nowadays.

Even now when I know I'm building something small and simple I build things with a smaller "micro-framework" (Pure.css, Flexbox Grid, etc.), or when I know I'm building something with specific performance constraints (e.g. animation heavy things for mobile web) I might be more careful with what I use, but when building a larger application without any obvious issues to keep in mind the power of a good CSS framework is absolutely the way to go. Just don't forget to also customize it to fit your style, and I don't just mean tweaking a few colors here and there.

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erebos-manannan profile image
Erebos Manannán

Ah, looks like the poor comment reply pages made me confuse you with another person.

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vlasterx profile image
Vladimir Jovanović

If I didn't appreciate a dialogue, I wouldn't have responded in the first place.

You didn't propose anything fresh ;) It takes experience to see what is old (these million times reused frameworks, for example) and then to propose an idea how to improve on it, for example to dare to create new design systems and personal CSS frameworks that could be expanded and improved.

You will understand it, give it some tome. Don't rush it, just enjoy your learning for now, because there is a long way ahead of you ;)

All best!

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dragonwocky profile image
dragonwocky

By fresh perspective, all I meant was perspective, a point of view based on nothing but the present, without much fore-knowledge of the topic. Not necessarily a fresh proposal or a new idea...

But yes, bloated old frameworks are in great need of improvement. That's no different to most bloated old code that needs reworking. Not all frameworks are old and bloated, however. Plus - old or not, all modern frameworks are (or at least, should be) built to be customised to your own design.

Anyway, I feel like we're now starting to go in circles.