Sent by David Dorward on 29 October 2004 09:09
On Thu, 28 Oct 2004 13:33:12 -0700, Larry Israel [EMAIL-REMOVED]> wrote:
(On variables in CSS)
> Often they suggest that this sort of thing can (now) be handled by a
> preprocessor...
Preprocessors have been around for a very long time, they certainly
predate CSS. Its been possible to generate CSS from a preprocessor
since the moment CSS was created.
> as if all web authors even know what they mean
It really isn't difficult to reply and ask what a preprocessor is if
they don't tell you when they suggest it (take it as a compliment that
they assume you know enough to recognise the term).
> and have one at their disposal.
It is a very rare author who cannot aquire a preprocessor. Heck, five
years ago an HTML preprocessor was the first piece of software I wrote
that had a practical purpose. (It was also the first thing I wrote
myself in Perl and took, if I remember correctly, about an hour to
write. These days I could probably recreate it in about 10 minutes
(its not a very good preprocessor, although it gets the job done).)
> I think they mean some type of scripting (etc.)
A preprecessor could be written in a scripting language.
> that will do this before the CSS file is completed (not sure this would be
> on the server or the web author's computer).
Either, my preference would be the latter as there is no need to burn
CPU cycles taking the same input and processing it to get the same
output with every request for the file.
> PHP-generated CSS, anyone?
.... is more then possible. Quite a few people do this already.
--
David Dorward <http://dorward.me.uk><http://blog.dorward.me.uk>
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