Is there an alternative to CSS?

Question

Is there a style sheet formatting language alternative to CSS? Or is CSS the current single language for doing Style Sheet formatting type things?

I looked at the wr

Answer 1

Yes there is, it's called LESS and it really adresses most CSS's code readability problems.

You can both compile it on the server or on-the-fly client-side with less.js.

For production, I recommend setting up a build script that compiles it (in NodeJS this is piece of cake with Grunt and grunt-contrib-less).

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Edit: There are also other options worth mentioning, even if I'm using and recommending LESS.

SASS: Ruby folks love this one. It is not a super-set of CSS like LESS, but instead uses its own syntax. To cope up for this, they developed SCSS, which is a CSS super-set and is similar to LESS.

Stylus: like LESS, it is coded in javascript, but this is commonly used from Node.js. I can't vouch for it, since I didn't try it out yet, but it is very mature so if it has a feature you want, definitely go for it.

Turbine: This one was coded in PHP. Not much traction.

Switch CSS: Maybe Python hackers will want to look into this. Even less traction.

If you're feeling even more alternative, there's also CSS Cacheer, CSScaffold, DtCSS, CSSPP and even something by porneL.

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Other stuff you might want to check out:

Compass: A full-on CSS authoring framework for the Ruby guys.

WinLESS: A drag&drop LESS compiler for Windows, it's super cool and you really should check it out.

LESS Elements, Preboot, LESSHat and even.less: Libraries of mixins and constants for LESS.

Bootstrap: A framework developed by Twitter. Also related: HTML5 Boilerplate.

Normalize.css: an alternative to CSS resets. There are many resets, however, as the developer of one, I have to say: most are crap. If you're not going to make your own, then just use this one.

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Update: Since 1.4, LESS has @extend too. Be sure to use 1.4+ if possible! This completes the reasons to choose LESS over SASS I think.