astroturf VS less.js

CSS-in-JS has been a challenge – we're currently using https://github.com/astroturfcss/astroturf which seemed the simplest zero-runtime-cost option back when we were looking, but the library is starting to feel a bit under-maintained (if the author of Astroturf reads this, we love your work and will do whatever we can to support you in it!). But it's worked well for us over the last 2 years.

Happy to share a component example. We also use a small library for managing CSS classes in a typed fashion, which can also be used by our UI test code to target various elements. So that does add a bit of cryptic boilerplate, but the repo README has an example component with syntax highlighting:

Try https://github.com/4Catalyzer/astroturf

On the other side of our titular question is styled-components. While I'm talking about styled-components specifically, the topics and concepts here apply to any CSS-in-JS provider (e.g. emotion). There is a smaller CSS-in-JS library called astroturf that aims to give the developer the best of all worlds, so the limitations I'll discuss later on don't apply there. But be careful with smaller projects/ones that claim you can have it all! You are wading through uncharted territory :)

LESS [ https://lesscss.org ]

Traditionally CSS lacked features such as variables, nesting, mixins, and functions. This was frustrating for Developers as it often led to CSS quickly becoming complex and cumbersome. In an attempt to make code easier and less repetitive CSS pre-processors were born. You would write CSS in the format the pre-processor understood and, at build time, you'd have some nice CSS. The most common pre-processors these days are Sass, Less, and Stylus. Any examples I give going forward will be about Sass as that's what I'm most familiar with.

In the past, you’d need to rely on pre-processors such as SaSS or Less, but not anymore… Native CSS nesting has landed on all major modern browsers.

Consider using CSS preprocessors like Sass or Less not only for better code organization but also for potential performance improvements.

Extensions of CSS: for example, Sass, Less, Tailwind, CSS Modules, to make stuff look a certain way on your own.

LiveCodes provides many of the commonly used developer tools. These include Monaco editor (that powers VS Code), Prettier, Emmet, Vim/Emacs modes, Babel, TypeScript, SCSS, Less, PostCSS, Jest and Testing Library, among others. All these tools run seamlessly in the browser without any installations or configurations. It feels like a very light-weight version of your own local development environment including the keyboard shortcuts, IntelliSense and code navigation features.

LESS

The CSS Working Group had been aware of the need for CSS variables since its inception in 1997. By the late 2000s, developers had created various workarounds like custom PHP scripts and preprocessors like Less and Sass to compensate for this deficiency.

He could do with LESS

While we may disagree whether Sass is still relevant today, Mayank's case for using Sass in 2022 sums up the many use cases for Sass/SCSS including a timeline from 2006 (Sass) to "2022+" (nesting). Nesting CSS used to one of the few good reasons left to choose Sass, SCSS (or less) in a new web project.