Styling for maintainability
Continue Reading April 30th, 2010 Carl Paradis
The following blog post is written for any developer who has experienced working on a web based application, and during such project, altered the front end code (css, html, jsp, xhtml, aspx, php, etc.)…
After consulting as a UI developer on a range of web applications, I’ve run into many different coding behaviors/standards. These projects range from annoyingly brittle to flexible and well designed. Yet, in every single one of these web projects, I found a troubling coding “pattern” that would eventually lead to maintenance headaches. What is this horrible “pattern” you ask? It is… (drum roll) the prevalent usage of inline styling (CSS)… ugh.
I can already imagine some developers scoffing (laughing?) at the idea that inline styling could be “troubling”. Well, let me stop and boldly say… it is bad practice that will ultimately hurt a project in the long run.
