!!! ARCHIVED: whilst the idea had potential way back then I clearly didn't have the expertise. There are now much better methods and libraries to assist (plus Defvs really embraced the tools n0de and other platforms provided to complie and automate certain parts of the process ... who knew) !!!
The aim of this project is to establish a robust set of PHP classes designed to make the construction and maintenance of Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) easier.
These are both popular CSS Pre-Processors which each implement their own take on an enhanced, non-standard extension to the default CSS language. They both require interpreters in order to translate their enhanced syntax in to native CSS! In my opinion this adds unnecessary additional demands on a developer just to integrate these in to their development process. Demands such as...
1. Learning new syntax and the specific nuances of the language(s).
2. Runing additional development environments such as Ruby (LESS/SASS),
NodeJS (LESS/SASS) or Compass (SASS only) in order to compile source files in to _native_ CSS.
3. Integration of these tools in to their development process.
(something which may require developers to completely change the way they're used to working!)
Developers are busy people and I think that the time required to learn and assimilate all of this in to their development processes can be seen as too 'expensive' and is therefor off putting.
My feeling was that if a developer has already invested the time in to learning PHP (a well established, powerful, dynamic programming language) then why should they have to spend more time learning other languages and tools which are far too specific and limited in their purpose to be worthwhile?! The cost in terms of time is simply not worth the pay-off for a slightly more powerful stylesheet syntax. They might as well just keep writting native CSS, since this is the end result anyway, and instead invest their time implementing better 'best practices' and optimisations in to their standard CSS development process.
The advantage of writing stylesheets in PHP is that the code is executed and compiled on the server before anything is sent to the browser, rather than using 'less.js' to compile LESS in to CSS on-the-fly client side using JavaScript (with all of the associated overheads and page rendering issues). It also means that a developer doesn't have to run their work through additional environments such as Ruby, NodeJS or Compass just to compile the 'enhanced' source files in to static CSS. By using OOPSS in PHP a developer can use the tools and programs he is familiar with without having to install or configure anything extra!
OOPSS intends to make developing and managing CSS for projects easier. It also hopes to implement many of the advanced/enhanced features found in LESS and SASS, but through PHP, and bring them to a wider audience by having a clear and intuitive Object-Oriented approach to creating style sheets and style rules.
Development v0.1_pre-alpha Current -
Copyright © 2013 Christopher Leaper License LGPL v3.0 (see 'license.txt')
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