Do you use a CSS framework? [closed]

Question

If yes, which one? Why? If no, why? How do you fix cross browser CSS rendering?

I currently use blueprint css, and I wonder if it's a good choice. Thanks! :)

Answer 1

No, I'm not using any framework, just a well thought out naming system that I reuse over and over and a basic css with a few resets and some base styles.

Why am I not using a css framework?

The use of a framework usually assumes that the designer is familiar with its conventions which is quite often not the case - you're not the one designing the page or the client has his own designer. And even if this is not the case, there will always be designs that won't fit into 960 pixels or simply have an even size so you can't use your magical .span-4 class.

Which leads me to the next point. The naming is not semantic. In theory you would expect a framework to ease maintaining a large site. However, suppose you have to make a slight design change. This basically means changing the html across all the template views involved. This is hard and risky even with a versioning system, because it's one thing having to rollback to a single css file, and another to 100 views. All because input.span-19 should have 5pixels less. CSS frameworks - the new inline css.

What about cross browser issues? Either you're using a framework or not this is not going to change. There are browsers or operating systems that have certain particularities. Bottom line - Internet Explorer will still suck as much.

CSS Frameworks stand out for discipline and I have to give them credit for that, but in the end it's all about the one writing the code.

Answer 2

I've noticed two major misconceptions about css frameworks.

Firstly, there tends to a lot of confusion between the concept of a framework used in software development, as a tool and a type of a framework such as 960gs.

Wikipedia defines a framework as "an abstraction in which software providing generic functionality can be selectively changed by user code, thus providing application specific software".

@vise says "I'm not using any framework, just a well thought out naming system that I reuse over and over and a basic css with a few resets and some base styles." This is akin to saying "I'm not using any framework, just a framework." This is probably some kind of semantic irony. No offence intended :)

Blueprint, 960, compass etc are all types of frameworks. Because some css frameworks may not be semantic or are lacking certain desirable qualities, this does not mean css frameworks are a bad idea.

The second misconception is that css and css frameworks are mutually exclusive. You either code css by hand or you use a framework (with some custom stuff). But... wait a minute... isn't CSS a set of default elements that we can alter or extend to suit our specific requirements? CSS looks suspiciously like a framework according to Wikipedia's definition.

Of course, this second point is debatable. But often I find that people are using some kind of framework without knowing it.

To answer your question, I tend to use something like sass and make my own framework. On my latest project, I am using a combination of this and Bourbon which is looking good so far. The main reason I use frameworks is because I'm tired of the redundancy in CSS. It's really boring having to repeat the same values over and over. There are other concepts in design that CSS doesn't do very well which I won't go into here (see here). But by using a framework, it's possible to abstract all your problems away and just work on getting things done.

I hope this helps!