Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Dynamic cascading style sheets


 * The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review).  No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was no consensus.  Sandstein  09:08, 15 June 2019 (UTC)

Dynamic cascading style sheets

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Contested PROD, but no improvement in the weeks since. Unimportant technique, with extremely sparse sourcing. Technically this is not a popular technique because it's just not a good idea to do it (it's of little use, and it breaks the REST model that efficient use of the web generally relies on). Andy Dingley (talk) 21:45, 23 May 2019 (UTC)
 * Given how it mentions less and scss (which are not dynamic), it does show that there should be something written about CSS preprocessors somewhere on this wiki. If we stretch the term hard enough those awful hacks can probably be seen as their spiritual (like... NodeJS/JScript type spiritual) precursors. --Artoria2e5 🌉 22:04, 23 May 2019 (UTC)
 * Less and CSS pre-processors are not dynamic CSS though.
 * Dynamic CSS is one of those ideas which sound like a good idea, until you think through the details. If the stylesheet(s) become dynamic, then they break a couple of the assumptions which we normally rely on to make the web efficient. Stylesheets which are stable and do not have temporal dependencies on their associated page can be cached and shared between many pages. Using dynamic CSS breaks that. As a result, it never became a popular technique, or relevant to us here. Andy Dingley (talk) 00:21, 24 May 2019 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Computing-related deletion discussions. Coolabahapple (talk) 02:42, 26 May 2019 (UTC)

 Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, T. Canens (talk) 03:56, 31 May 2019 (UTC)
 * OK, so it's a terrible idea, like self-modifying code from an earlier generation, and not many folks are foolish enough to try it. That doesn't mean it's not a thing, nor that it hasn't been tried, nor that it might not even be a notable topic in its own right, perhaps. It needs to be mentioned, described, and dismissed with suitable citations somewhere. If that means merging it to the CSS article (probably), or even developing and citing the article, so be it. Chiswick Chap (talk) 08:30, 31 May 2019 (UTC)
 * But is it a notable thing?  It doesn't become one unless it's a technique that is discussed in secondary sources, and as a technique of so little use, it never achieved this.
 * Merging it into CSS would be an even worse situation, giving a false impression of UNDUE. Andy Dingley (talk) 09:27, 31 May 2019 (UTC)


 * Keep. It may be a dumb idea, but it is found in the literature;
 * Henrik Stormer, "Personalized websites for mobile devices using dynamic cascading style sheets", International Journal of Web Information Systems, 2005.
 * Nick Heinle, Bill Peña, Designing with Javascript: Creating Dynamic Web Pages covers it over six pages starting on p.139 (and they seem to think it is a good idea).
 * Jason Cranford Teague, DHTML and CSS for the World Wide Web devotes a chapter to it, and also seems to like the idea.
 * Stormer might be the originator of the idea (I don't know) but he is cited by several others. SpinningSpark 17:11, 31 May 2019 (UTC)

 Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks,  Sandstein   18:03, 7 June 2019 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.