Hasty Treat - CSS Nesting 1

Apr 12, 2021

The hosts dive into the exciting world of CSS nesting, highlighting its benefits for cleaner, more organized code. They discuss when to use nesting effectively, warning against overdoing it just for style's sake. The conversation also touches on nested media queries, showcasing how they enhance stylesheet functionality. With insights on tools like PostCSS and comparisons to preprocessors, listeners are encouraged to embrace nesting for better development practices while avoiding common pitfalls.

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INSIGHT

CSS Nesting Arrives

CSS nesting, similar to preprocessors like Sass, is coming to CSS.
This simplifies selector writing and reduces redundancy, a feature long desired by developers.

ADVICE

Nesting Draft Status

Don't use CSS nesting in production yet; it's currently a draft.
While the draft is likely stable, it's important to wait for browser support to solidify.

INSIGHT

Nesting Benefits and Risks

Nesting makes CSS easier to read, write, and refactor by reducing string duplication.
Overuse can create overly specific and hard-to-maintain code.

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In this Hasty Treat, Scott and Wes talk about CSS nesting — what it is, when to use it, and why.

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Show Notes

04:22 - What is it?

06:02 - Why nest?

Easier to read
Easier to write
Prevents refactoring errors, allows for dry-er code. No more typing a parent div 100 times, with a possibility of screwing it up.

08:13 - When to use nesting

Nesting is often overused
Only nest what you would have written un-nested with a short hand (e.g. don’t nest just for the sake of it)
- .container .item {} .container .item a {}
Use it for scoping

10:06 - Nesting prefixes

In order to nest CSS, you must first start it with a nesting selector

.tweet { & > p { } &.media-included { color: green; } & + .tweet { } // sibling & p { } // descentang }

Component-based — tweet, card, company, Link

article{ color: blue; & { color: red; } }

and must be the first child of a compound selector

12:44 - @nest rule / media queries

Mostly just a visual way to show nested

.foo { display: grid; @media(orientation: landscape) { & { grid-auto-flow: column; } } } .foo { display: grid; @media (orientation: landscape) { & { grid-auto-flow: column; } @media (min-inline-size > 1024px) { & { max-inline-size: 1024px; } } } } /* equivalent to .foo { display: grid; } @media (orientation: landscape) { .foo { grid-auto-flow: column; } } @media (orientation: landscape) and (min-inline-size > 1024px) { .foo { max-inline-size: 1024px; } } */

16:30 - How to use nesting today

Literally any CSS preprocessor
PostCSS to use spec

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