"value":"\n <p>I'm currently working on a project that doesn't use any atomic or utility-first CSS.<\/p>\n\n<p>It uses Sass, which I haven't used for some time, but it has reminded me of some of the reasons I like the utility-first approach to CSS.<\/p>\n\n<h2 id=\"specificity-and-cascading\">Specificity and cascading<\/h2>\n\n<p>With utility styles, there are no specificity or cascading issues as styles are added to each element and provide a local scope.<\/p>\n\n<p>With global styles, your element can be overridden or altered by another part of CSS elsewhere in the stylesheet.<\/p>\n\n<p>I've also had situations where I've had to \"undo\" unwanted styling that was added elsewhere, such as on a hover or focus state.<\/p>\n\n<h2 id=\"easier-to-read-and-understand\">Easier to read and understand<\/h2>\n\n<p>With utility styles, I can read the classes on an element and understand straight away what styles are applied to it and start to make changes - especially when using a framework, such as Tailwind CSS.<\/p>\n\n<p>With generic class names or IDs, I'm not able to do that.<\/p>\n\n<h2 id=\"context-switching\">Context switching<\/h2>\n\n<p>To make changes to an element, once I've found it in the HTML, I then need to find the stylesheet (or stylesheets) that add the styling and switch between the HTML and CSS files as many times as needed.<\/p>\n\n<p>Usually with utility styles, I rarely need to edit the stylesheet and can work almost exclusively in the HTML and not need to switch between files.<\/p>\n\n<h2 id=\"concatination-and-nesting\">Concatination and nesting<\/h2>\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.oliverdavies.uk\/daily\/2024\/07\/08\/back-to-sass-and-traditional-css\">Something I've avoided with Sass<\/a>, as well as newer versions of CSS, is the over-use of nesting styles, which makes it harder to find them when searching for the correct stylesheet.<\/p>\n\n<p>If there was this CSS:<\/p>\n\n<pre><code class=\"css\">.sidebar {\n &-wrapper {\n a {\n &:hover,\n &:focus {\n }\n }\n }\n}\n<\/code><\/pre>\n\n<p>If I tried searching for <code>.sidebar-wrapper<\/code> or <code>.sidebar-wrapper a:hover<\/code>, they wouldn't be found and it would take me longer to find it.<\/p>\n\n<h2 id=\"here%27s-the-thing\">Here's the thing<\/h2>\n\n<p>It's taken me a while to get back into this way of working with CSS, but it does remind me <a href=\"https:\/\/www.oliverdavies.uk\/presentations\/taking-flight-with-tailwind-css\">why I prefer to use utility styles<\/a> for my own projects.<\/p>\n\n ",
"processed":"\n <p>I'm currently working on a project that doesn't use any atomic or utility-first CSS.<\/p>\n\n<p>It uses Sass, which I haven't used for some time, but it has reminded me of some of the reasons I like the utility-first approach to CSS.<\/p>\n\n<h2 id=\"specificity-and-cascading\">Specificity and cascading<\/h2>\n\n<p>With utility styles, there are no specificity or cascading issues as styles are added to each element and provide a local scope.<\/p>\n\n<p>With global styles, your element can be overridden or altered by another part of CSS elsewhere in the stylesheet.<\/p>\n\n<p>I've also had situations where I've had to \"undo\" unwanted styling that was added elsewhere, such as on a hover or focus state.<\/p>\n\n<h2 id=\"easier-to-read-and-understand\">Easier to read and understand<\/h2>\n\n<p>With utility styles, I can read the classes on an element and understand straight away what styles are applied to it and start to make changes - especially when using a framework, such as Tailwind CSS.<\/p>\n\n<p>With generic class names or IDs, I'm not able to do that.<\/p>\n\n<h2 id=\"context-switching\">Context switching<\/h2>\n\n<p>To make changes to an element, once I've found it in the HTML, I then need to find the stylesheet (or stylesheets) that add the styling and switch between the HTML and CSS files as many times as needed.<\/p>\n\n<p>Usually with utility styles, I rarely need to edit the stylesheet and can work almost exclusively in the HTML and not need to switch between files.<\/p>\n\n<h2 id=\"concatination-and-nesting\">Concatination and nesting<\/h2>\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.oliverdavies.uk\/daily\/2024\/07\/08\/back-to-sass-and-traditional-css\">Something I've avoided with Sass<\/a>, as well as newer versions of CSS, is the over-use of nesting styles, which makes it harder to find them when searching for the correct stylesheet.<\/p>\n\n<p>If there was this CSS:<\/p>\n\n<pre><code class=\"css\">.sidebar {\n &-wrapper {\n a {\n &:hover,\n &:focus {\n }\n }\n }\n}\n<\/code><\/pre>\n\n<p>If I tried searching for <code>.sidebar-wrapper<\/code> or <code>.sidebar-wrapper a:hover<\/code>, they wouldn't be found and it would take me longer to find it.<\/p>\n\n<h2 id=\"here%27s-the-thing\">Here's the thing<\/h2>\n\n<p>It's taken me a while to get back into this way of working with CSS, but it does remind me <a href=\"https:\/\/www.oliverdavies.uk\/presentations\/taking-flight-with-tailwind-css\">why I prefer to use utility styles<\/a> for my own projects.<\/p>\n\n ",
