Lifeline Blog

Most people would argue that CSS frameworks are the new “god” when it comes to CSS programming. Although in part this is correct, I highly disapprove of the need to use CSS frameworks for everything, for a couple of reasons.

First off, a CSS framework is a very compact, complex, and relatively useful base on which you can style your own elements independently. It offers basic layout classes, basic width classes, basic height classes and a standardized way to write your CSS. This is all nice and great – on paper – however, in real life and real life development it only works if you have a very specific goal you want to achieve.

CSS frameworks work very well when it comes to building a huge website that is PHP/ASP.NET based and which has a very standardized layout, ie. most elements on the page are placed into modules and each module is presented after a strict grid like this:

<div class="module">
 <div class="mod-header">

 </div>
 <div class="mod-content clearfix">
  <div class="list-item">

  </div>
  <div class="side-item">

  </div>
 </div>
</div>

If you have a website that has a lot of different content on all pages, and many different ways you want the content represented, building the website via a framework is impossible.  But let’s say you wish to build an administrative panel for a software — then, since everything is modulated and everything almost looks the same because each module is a function of that CMS system (much like in wordpress admin panel ), actually making the entire CSS based on a framework is actually a smart decision that will cut your development costs significantly.

Also, having a framework is very good when it comes to getting people to work on your code; since I highly doubt that the developers who build the website will remain with the same company for the next 5-10 years, having a standard on which everything is built can help the newcomers get up to speed quickly and without too many hassles.

PRO

• Highly easy to build from the ground up
• Fits like a glove when you try to build an admin-panel or anything modular
• Helps newcomers get up to speed quickly
• Lowers development costs

CON

• Highly unsuited for building a regular dynamic website
• Very complicated to learn from the start if you have zero previous knowledge
• Lots of files to manage

So, CSS frameworks have their usefulness but it’s not the “end of everything” as they are preached by various CSS coders.

Regarding CSS frameworks suggestions, I highly suggest jQueryUI framework which comes bundled with image-icons, CSS code, and jQuery functionality all in one, so you can grab that @ http://jQueryUI.com

That’s all for this week.