build/over-nesting/index.html


1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80

<!doctype html>
<html lang="en">
<head>
	<meta charset="utf-8">
	<meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1">
	<meta name="color-scheme" content="dark light">
	<link rel="icon" href="data:,">
	<title>Over-Nesting</title>
	<link href="/atom.xml" type="application/atom+xml" rel="alternate" title="Atom feed for blog posts" />
	<link href="/rss.xml" type="application/rss+xml" rel="alternate" title="RSS feed for blog posts" />
<style>*{box-sizing:border-box;}body{font-family:sans-serif;line-height:1.33;margin:0 auto;max-width:650px;padding:1rem;}blockquote{background:rgba(0,0,0,0.1);border-left:4px solid;padding-left:5px;}img{max-width:100%;}pre{border:1px solid;overflow:auto;padding:5px;}table{text-align:left;width:100%;}.footnotes{font-size:90%;}</style>
</head>

<nav>
	<a href="#menu">Menu &darr;</a>
</nav>

<main>
<h1 id="over-nesting">Over-Nesting</h1>
<p>2019-01-06</p>
<p>I think since our design industry moves so quickly and exciting new technologies get released almost daily, that we often forget some of the basics when writing CSS. I bring this up because I&#8217;ve recently worked on a few projects that show a slight disregard for proper class&#47;selector nesting.</p>
<p>Now it&#8217;s completely understandable why designers and teams alike shrug off the concept of &#8220;over-nesting&#8221;:</p>
<ul>
<li>As a team we know the structure of our code (no outside party needs to interact with it)</li>
<li>Everything is written in <code>insert pre-processor here</code> - so it&#8217;s cleaner&#47;compiled anyway</li>
<li>It&#8217;s <em>technically</em> DRY</li>
</ul>
<p>I personally believe these are all weak excuses that don&#8217;t justify the poor experience future maintainers of your code will face. <em>You should always write your code with the idea someone completely new to the project will have to maintain it</em>.</p>
<p>Let&#8217;s look at an average example of poor nesting that I&#8217;ve seen out in the wild:</p>
<pre><code>&#47;* These children elements can&#39;t be used outside 
of the parent - not very flexible *&#47;
.main-container {
    .child-container {
        &#47;* This class specificity is too deep *&#47;
        .sub-child-container {}
    }
}
</code></pre>
<p>Even if you know a child element will never be structured outside of it&#8217;s parent, what harm does it cause to still place it out of such deep specificity?</p>
<pre><code>&#47;* This code is far more reusable *&#47;
.main-container {}
.child-container {}
.sub-child-container {}
</code></pre>
<h3 id="exceptions">Exceptions</h3>
<p>As with anything, there are exceptions to the <em>rule</em>. If the nested elements pertain to the parent itself, it makes complete sense to group these stylings together. A button or link item are excellent examples of this:</p>
<pre><code>.btn-lg {
    &#38;:hover {}
    &#38;:active {}
    &#38;:disabled{}
}

.link-item {
    &#38;:hover{}
    &#38;:focus{}
}
</code></pre>
<p>Of course, this is all easier said than done. Limitations exist within teams or even on an individual level that might make this impossible to change. Maybe you don&#8217;t have the authority to rework your current CSS or it would eat up too many cycles and time is valuable - especially in the world of startups. </p>
<p>I&#8217;m not saying this is <strong>the only way to structure CSS</strong> - I&#8217;m only trying to make the lives of future designers&#47;developers easier moving forward. </p>
<footer role="contentinfo">
    <h2>Menu Navigation</h2>
    <ul id="menu">
        <li><a href="/">Home</a></li>
        <li><a href="/projects">Projects</a></li>
        <li><a href="/uses">Uses</a></li>
        <li><a href="/wiki">Wiki</a></li>
        <li><a href="/resume">Resume</a></li>
        <li><a href="/colophon">Colophon</a></li>
        <li><a href="/now">Now</a></li>
        <li><a href="/donate">Donate</a></li>
        <li><a href="/atom.xml">RSS</a></li>
        <li><a href="#top">&uarr; Top of the page</a></li>
    </ul>
    <small>
        Built with <a href="https://git.sr.ht/~bt/barf">barf</a>. <br>
        Maintained with ♥ for the web. <br>
        Proud supporter of <a href="https://usefathom.com/ref/DKHJVX">Fathom</a> &amp; <a href="https://nextdns.io/?from=74d3p3h8">NextDNS</a>. <br>
        The content for this site is <a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/">CC-BY-SA</a>.<br> The <a href="https://git.sr.ht/~bt/bt.ht">code for this site</a> is <a href="https://git.sr.ht/~bt/bt.ht/tree/master/item/LICENSE">MIT</a>.
    </small>
</footer>