I spent years trying to make CSS states predictable

My final conclusion about CSS is - program the damn machine.

What I mean by this is STOP every single type of abstraction/library/programming layer for CSS - nothing gets it right, everything causes a problem.

The ONLY way to deal with CSS is program it directly in the way the docs say, never anything else.

There's nothing wrong with using Bootstrap or whatever, and I definitely use JavaScript to program CSS. What I am saying is - no abstractions - no "better way" - no trying to turn CSS into something it isn't via whatever your new abstraction is that can be added to the N other abstractions that other people have made over the years.

Program the damn machine.

Happy to take questions! I built this because I kept hitting the same wall: CSS state resolution is opaque when states overlap, and extending components means mentally re-deriving the whole selector matrix every time.

Some topics I'm curious what people think about:

- What’s the one thing this doesn’t cover that you’d expect it to?

- Does the syntax feel natural to you, or did you find yourself confused by anything?

- I'm looking for edge cases: what kind of complex selector scenario would trip this compiler up or be impossible to express with this model?

AMA—happy to answer any questions about the tool, the implementation, or the design choices.

The simple solution is :enabled:hover. For example:

  .btn {
    &:enabled:hover {
      background: dodgerblue;
    }
    &:disabled {
      background: gray;
    }
  }

This sounds interesting, but I’d need to think about it more so I could picture how things fit together as they get more complex and different styles logically overlap. This looks to head in the utility direction possibly too far for that to work nicely. But it may well work better than I’m initially imagining.

Unfortunately I can’t give it more attention now, because I should have gone to sleep a couple of hours ago…

—⁂—

Another approach entirely is to embrace last-declaration-wins, by :where()ing everything:

  :where(.t0)           { background: var(--primary-color); }
  :where(.t0:hover)     { background: var(--primary-hover-color); }
  :where(.t0:active)    { background: var(--primary-pressed-color); }
  :where(.t0[disabled]) { background: var(--surface-color); }

I’ve made some gnarly custom forms over the years but never quite run into the problem you’re describing.

These days if starting a greenfield web app, each page has its own style/css sent in the head tag.

Because it’s usually just base layout + page specific styles/overrides then it barely adds any overhead in the scheme of things(couple of extra KB).

Maybe the base layout could be moved into a static file to be cached but whatever, it’s already ridiculously quick to render plain html/css.

I can agree that CSS is really unpredictable. However ,not being able to put CSS in a file isn't a small change. It makes other people to read the code harder, and mixing css and js just doesn't feel right. But just to keep my self safe, I know how people reacted to react at first. This might be normal in the future. Maybe.

Personally I just increase the specificity as needed.

.thing

.thing-container .thing

html body .thing-container .thing.thing.thing.thing

> You are no longer just writing styles. You are maintaining a resolution system in your head.

Reminds me of styled components. If the goal is generating the selector why not let the body be a string: ```{ Item: "color: red;" }```?

I also spent years on the same problem. I was creating a programming language for designers, which was supposed to abstract away the complexity of CSS. Long story short, I gave up.

[dead]

Probably because you aren't using Sin