Thoughs on LESS CSS

So if you don't know about LESS CSS it is a way to generate CSS given a LESS file/object which consists of a lose set of rules.  First impressions this seems really powerful - a way to generate CSS using programming logic.  The problem is that is only limited to generating CSS and not adding additional functionality to CSS.  So even though there is or maybe has been hype around CSS for a developer who is not a CSS developer this has little to no value to you.  In fact I would go as far to say that it has limited use for CSS developers.  Reason I say this is a website design tends not to have a lot of design which can be reused nor is it easy to predict the reuse.  Only real exception to this is website which have a big templating base such as Wordpress.  I can see making different colour themes template really useful but that is really where it ends.  So for me it gets put in the really cool category but I don't have business case for it.

What I want in JavaScript

I was reading a coding horror post on JavaScript which went over how it was popular, how it can to be and the troubles which it faces in the future. I reflected on this point of view thinking a language's success can have very little to do with itself. JavaScript is no SmallTalk when it comes to languages an one could argue it just a child of previous modern day languages. That said I'm not that interested in new language features being added to JavaScript but would really like to see new deployment formats. The inline JavaScript or HTML script tag include element are to focused around the HTML document. A clean separation between layout and code should be created as to prevent and control JavaScript execution. It is far to easy to include JavaScript libraries and too easy for conflicts to occur until it is too late.

I would like to see a compiled format for the language which is sandboxed so you can be sure no one else overwrite a feature. Something like the SWF format would ideal as you have a lot more control over the binary. I know a lot of js files are minifyed and sent compressed via the web server but that gives you no control over the internals.

Also it would be great nice to see a new HTML feature designed around JavaScript which is being run. So you could state any restrictions on the code which is running. This would look at bring HTML applications inline with other apps that are built complied for deployment on other platforms such as iOS and Andriod.

Even though I dread the thought of HTML, CSS, & JavaScript being the base of modern applications that doesn't mean it will not happen. With web developers now pushing the HTML platform pass some document format syntax and to the base of applications we should expect it to grow as well.

New tech but lack of tooling

I was flicked an email to the rome interactive music video. I was not sure what to expect but I was most impressed by it. This really is a great showcase of the mixing HTML5 and WebGL. The music was really cool... might even get myself a copy of the single/album . But once I had played it a couple of times through I was thinking exactly how easy is this? Changing pixels on the screen is one thing but how fast did it take them to do it?

My experiences with JavaScript is one of a love hate relationship... but I'll leave that for another post. So I was wondering how did they generate all the JavaScript files for the models etc. It's cool to have something that can play/run it but how about something productive to generate it? I was hoping the behind the scenes tech vid would shed some light on this but it didn't... other than going on about WebGL and HTML5. As a developer at heart I want to know how hard was it? Like really, how hard it was? It is really cool that you can do this but having something render your vision is one thing... how you create it in a form to render it is what interests me. Which really comes down to tooling.

Time will tell if this is just one cool example/demo application of these techs destined for history or is there a larger movement out there with tooling to follow? At the end of the day I'm always thinking about productivity and great tools make great techs hum. So for the meantime I wait an see what great tooling comes out on top for creating such visionary pieces of work.