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0 pointsken8y ago0 comments

> I struggle to even move buttons around (if I fail to update all constraints right, the whole layout collapses)

I would say that accurately describes my experience with CSS. Any selector has the potential to mess up the entire page.

With NSLayoutConstraints, not only does it match my mental model of how layout ought to work, but I know that in a properly-factored layout, constraints can only mess up their local section.

Globals make debugging tough in any context, and I wouldn't blame the language simply for allowing their use.

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4 comments · 2 top-level

jakelazaroff8y ago· 1 in thread

> Any selector has the potential to mess up the entire page.

That's true, but the modern web stack has several solutions to this. If you don't mind "CSS-in-JS", I've been using the excellent styled-components [1] library for my company's React app. I believe Vuejs supports scoped styles out of the box [2]. And if you'd prefer to just write plain CSS, CSS modules [3] will mangle the classnames in your CSS files so you don't have to worry about collision.

[1] https://www.styled-components.com/

[2] https://vue-loader.vuejs.org/en/features/scoped-css.html

[3] https://github.com/css-modules/css-modules

kenOP8y ago

Yep, and I consider this one of the main advantages of tools like SASS, even.

girvo8y ago· 1 in thread

So your hypothetical native layout is properly factored, but the CSS one isn’t in this comparison?

kenOP8y ago

No. Even in perfectly factored CSS, one bad selector still can mess up the whole page, no? That's why all those nifty tools (mentioned in a sibling comment) exist.

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