Top all-time · #2887
Tab Completion
Personal blog · xanthir.comwebprogramming
Tab Completion is a personal blog at xanthir.com about web and programming. Since 2010, 27 different Hacker News readers have linked it 48 times, most often “W3C Decisions on CSS Variables (Accepting Comments)”. The last post was in 2023, but the archive is still widely read.
Too few sampled comments (15) to say how often HN recommends it.?
Why HN links it
HN readers link xanthir.com mainly for posts explaining CSS design decisions, such as why custom properties use '--' and why @apply was abandoned, plus a post on Python string iteration. Commenters cite these as sources.
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 15 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
Most-linked posts?
- W3C Decisions on CSS Variables (Accepting Comments)4 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2012-08-16
- /b4o002 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2019-08-09
- /b4o002 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2017-07-13
- A Word About CSS42 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2012-09-05
What Hacker News says?
Apropos color names, some related work: [] Color map with meaningful names http://www.procato.com/rgb+index/ [] The CNS Color Naming System https://www.xanthir.com/blog/b4JS1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_Naming_System [] Universal Color Language, Level 3 Color Names https://johndecember.com/html/spec/colorucl.html [] deriving color names from photos of rainbows: https://www.comfsm.fm/~dleeling/cis/hsl_rainbow…
Comment linking /blog/b4JS1
on “Show HN: A color picker for named web colors”Submitted A Word About CSS4 as a story · 53 points
HN discussionErr... no. CSS custom properties are interesting because they are dynamic. CSSNext just translates them statically, hence why it restricts definitions to `:root`. So the only thing CSSNext gives you over other "variables in CSS" preprocessors is that the syntax looks like actual CSS. But good luck swapping out colors at runtime without recompiling the generated CSS, which is trivial with "CSS-in-JS" solutions like s…
Comment linking /b4o00
on “ECMAScript 2017 Language Specification”Submitted W3C Decisions on CSS Variables (Accepting Comments) as a story · 26 points
HN discussionRelevant discussions to "@apply": https://discourse.wicg.io/t/needed-new-champion-for-css-appl... and the linked http://www.xanthir.com/b4o00 ("Why I Abandoned @apply")
Comment linking /b4o00
on “Shoelace.css – A back to the basics CSS starter kit”Submitted Depixelating Pixel Art as a story · 5 points
HN discussionSometimes I wish that python strings weren't directly iterable... this article sums it up better than I ever could https://www.xanthir.com/b4wJ1 ...then str.strip and variants could be cleanly and logically extended to allow this functionality, because passing a string and a sequence of strings would be distinguishable. Alas, clean and logical function design can be hard to do late in a languages life. PEP 593 and P…
Comment linking /b4wJ1
on “The PEPs of Python 3.9”Submitted The color() Function as a story · 5 points
HN discussionI've wondered for years why we're using pre-processing to get variables into CSS. Given that there hasn't been a commonly advocated workflow that didn't include some sort of CSS processor (like LESS or SASS) in about a decade, it seems like somebody working on the standards would have realized that CSS needed variables, at the very least. So, it's cool that it's coming, though it's taken a lot longer than I reckon i…
Comment linking /b4KT0
on “CSS Variables landing in Chrome 49”Submitted Why We Can't Have Nice Things: Metric Time as a story · 4 points
HN discussionI think a lot of people agree with you but there is a reason: http://www.xanthir.com/blog/b4KT0
Comment linking /blog/b4KT0
on “CSS Variables landing in Chrome 49”Submitted Benefits of Base 6 as a story · 3 points
HN discussionUsing $ to identify variables was proposed in the CSS working group. It was ruled against in order to keep that syntax free for future developments (e.g.g SASS-like macros). http://www.xanthir.com/blog/b4KT0
Comment linking /blog/b4KT0
on “CSS Variables in Firefox Nightly”Submitted We Should Be Using Base 6 Instead as a story · 3 points
HN discussionThis spec unfortunately does not appear to be alive and well. https://tabatkins.github.io/specs/css-apply-rule/ https://www.xanthir.com/b4o00
Comment linking /b4o00
on “Show HN: Tailwind.run – An Online Playground for Tailwind CSS”Submitted 2014 State of Element Queries as a story · 3 points
HN discussionNone really anymore. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Export_of_cryptography#Current_... http://www.xanthir.com/document/document.php?id=6e54a9d38b4a...
on “NSA Revelations Cast Doubt on the Entire Tech Industry”Submitted Explaining Futures as a story · 3 points
HN discussion- Good for you :) - You probably don't need a framework - There is no such things as CSS 4 http://www.xanthir.com/b4Ko0 . That said, cssnext will handle features like babeljs, using different stages. An issue is opened for this https://github.com/cssnext/cssnext/issues/100
Comment linking /b4Ko0
on “Cssnext: use tomorrow’s CSS syntax, today”Submitted Render Any HTML5 Video in ASCII as a story · 3 points
HN discussion> what the heck were they thinking? I don't know, maybe about how to design a spec that is compatible with past and future CSS parsers and features? People think it's so simple to come up with a new feature for CSS/HTML/JS, when actually, they have no idea how difficult it is. They're smarter than that: http://www.xanthir.com/blog/b4KT0
Comment linking /blog/b4KT0
on “CSS Variables in Firefox 31 – new syntax”Submitted Single Line Comments (//) In CSS as a story · 2 points
HN discussionThey talk about reasons for choosing `--` here: https://www.xanthir.com/blog/b4KT0 TL, DR: There was discussion of using properties that look like `$foo` to define variables, but if they used `$foo` for variables, they would be unable to use it for future "variable-like" things. CSS custom properties behave differently from CSS pre-processor variables and they wanted to make that clear. Additionally, it’s to provide…
Comment linking /blog/b4KT0
on “Uses for CSS Custom Properties”Submitted Basic Category Theory Terms as a story · 2 points
HN discussionThere was a mixins proposal for `@apply`[0][1] but it was unfortunately dropped [0]: https://tabatkins.github.io/specs/css-apply-rule/ [1]: https://www.xanthir.com/b4o00
Comment linking /b4o00
on “Speaking Up for Sass (2021)”Submitted A New SVG for SVG2 as a story · 2 points
HN discussionTailwind depends on @apply in PostCSS to function, something that was never officially proposed for CSS, but has been killed by its author and we know for sure CSS won't do, for the reasons the author of the original @apply idea lists here: https://www.xanthir.com/b4o00 So we have known all along that this will never happen. It was rejected for some very good reasons before Tailwind began.
Comment linking /b4o00
on a deleted threadSubmitted Futures Eliminate Time as a story · 2 points
HN discussionLinked post is http://www.xanthir.com/b4ZT0
Comment linking /b4ZT0
on “Tab Atkins Jr. makes case that Google employees can manipulate search results”Submitted DOM Streams as a story · 2 points
HN discussion
