Findings

The proof of concepts helped expose early flaws, highlight what was/wasn’t useful, and unearth new features / use-cases.

They also provided an insight into how mono improves CSS development, the key benefits being:

• Clarity: easier to track where styles derive from and why they exist.
• Predictable: easier to foresee what impact adding / changing / removing styles will have.
• Robust: styles independant of cascade, specificity and uncontrolled overrides make CSS resilient to change.
• Reusable: controlled overrides encourage better reuse.
• Speed: faster development time, since less time lost in the typical CSS workflow.
• Maintainable: easier to maintain (thanks to predictability and robustness).

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An unexpected benefit also emerged. Being a side project meant that monos development time was disjointed. I’d jump in and out of building the example projects - 2 hour chunks of work spread over several weeks, at times days apart.

I found it easier to resume from where I’d left off, and quicker to get back up to speed, since the styles were easier to understand. I also felt more confident to make changes, since the behavior of CSS was predictable and its side-effects suppressed.

I started to think what other factors helped mono escape the typical CSS workflow, and attribute this to:

• Code is expressive which makes it easier to understand.
• Patterns promote consistency which buys familiarity.
• Constraints limit uncertainty which narrows the scope of potential problems.
• Rules guide workflow which reduces time making needless decisions, whilst improving consistency.

What's next?

Release monos compiler!