styled-jsx VS styletron

You'd rather use this over tailwind? Na...

styled-jsx -> A library with a lot of similar features like styled-components. Has some extra features here and there.

This isn't a new idea. CSS in JS is obviously a thing, but that usually implies having component code with CSS right alongside it in some sort of JS based syntax. There's also JSS which is a library for writing CSS with JS.

The CSS we'll use for the Gantt chart is included in the starter code. We've used Styled JSX, which comes with Next.js, to write scoped-styled components. There are some global styles in styles/globals.js. These global styles are added to our app in the Layout component in the components folder. The entire app is wrapped in this Layout component in the _app.js file, which is in the pages folder.

Styled JSX is what we're using at work right now, since we're using Next.js and it comes with this out of the box. We're actually using both SCSS modules for static styles and Styled JSX for dynamic styles. It's been great so far.

// schema.json { "$schema": "http://json-schema.org/schema", "cli": "nx", "$id": "ReactLibrary", "title": "", "type": "object", "properties": { "name": { "type": "string", "description": "Library name", "$default": { "$source": "argv", "index": 0 }, "x-prompt": "What name would you like to use for the library?", "pattern": "^[a-zA-Z].*$" }, "directory": { "type": "string", "description": "A directory where the lib is placed.", "alias": "dir" }, "domain": { "description": "Domain where this library belongs.", "type": "string", "default": "none", "alias": "dom", "x-prompt": { "message": "Which domain this library belongs?", "type": "list", "items": [ { "value": "web", "label": "Web" }, { "value": "common", "label": "Common" } ] } }, "scope": { "type": "string", "description": "A scope for the lib.", "alias": "sc" }, "type": { "description": "Library type", "type": "string", "alias": "t", "x-prompt": { "message": "Select library type?", "type": "list", "items": [ { "value": "data", "label": "Data" }, { "value": "model", "label": "Model" }, { "value": "util", "label": "Util" }, { "value": "feature", "label": "Feature" }, { "value": "ui", "label": "Ui" } ] } }, "style": { "description": "The file extension to be used for style files.", "type": "string", "default": "none", "alias": "s", "x-prompt": { "message": "Which stylesheet format would you like to use?", "type": "list", "items": [ { "value": "css", "label": "CSS" }, { "value": "scss", "label": "SASS(.scss) [ http://sass-lang.com ]" }, { "value": "styl", "label": "Stylus(.styl) [ http://stylus-lang.com ]" }, { "value": "less", "label": "LESS [ http://lesscss.org ]" }, { "value": "styled-components", "label": "styled-components [ https://styled-components.com ]" }, { "value": "@emotion/styled", "label": "emotion [ https://emotion.sh ]" }, { "value": "styled-jsx", "label": "styled-jsx [ https://www.npmjs.com/package/styled-jsx ]" }, { "value": "none", "label": "None" } ] } }, "linter": { "description": "The tool to use for running lint checks.", "type": "string", "enum": ["eslint", "tslint"], "default": "eslint" }, "unitTestRunner": { "type": "string", "enum": ["jest", "none"], "description": "Test runner to use for unit tests.", "default": "jest" }, "skipFormat": { "description": "Skip formatting files.", "type": "boolean", "default": false }, "skipTsConfig": { "type": "boolean", "default": false, "description": "Do not update `tsconfig.json` for development experience." }, "pascalCaseFiles": { "type": "boolean", "description": "Use pascal case component file name (e.g. `App.tsx`).", "alias": "P", "default": false }, "routing": { "type": "boolean", "description": "Generate library with routes." }, "appProject": { "type": "string", "description": "The application project to add the library route to.", "alias": "a" }, "publishable": { "type": "boolean", "description": "Create a publishable library." }, "buildable": { "type": "boolean", "default": false, "description": "Generate a buildable library." }, "importPath": { "type": "string", "description": "The library name used to import it, like `@myorg/my-awesome-lib`." }, "component": { "type": "boolean", "description": "Generate a default component.", "default": true }, "js": { "type": "boolean", "description": "Generate JavaScript files rather than TypeScript files.", "default": false }, "globalCss": { "type": "boolean", "description": "When `true`, the stylesheet is generated using global CSS instead of CSS modules (e.g. file is `*.css` rather than `*.module.css`).", "default": false }, "strict": { "type": "boolean", "description": "Whether to enable tsconfig strict mode or not.", "default": true }, "setParserOptionsProject": { "type": "boolean", "description": "Whether or not to configure the ESLint `parserOptions.project` option. We do not do this by default for lint performance reasons.", "default": false }, "standaloneConfig": { "description": "Split the project configuration into `/project.json` rather than including it inside `workspace.json`.", "type": "boolean" }, "compiler": { "type": "string", "enum": ["babel", "swc"], "default": "swc", "description": "Which compiler to use." } }, "required": ["name", "type", "scope", "domain"] }

The previous three methods covered the best styling options if you prefer Utility CSS. But perhaps you are more of a CSS-in-JS kind of person. In which case, Styled-JSX might be up your alley.

React is pretty much its own language at this point. With J/TSX. Not even CSS is immune to react's approach of "what everything was proprammatically generated divs?", case and point https://www.styletron.org

Some technical thoughts as someone who could care less about fanboyism:

- One point where atomic CSS frameworks are supposed to shine over conventional CSS is bundle size, since they (at least the good ones) compile to only a single rule for any used value, rather than potentially repeating rules for semantically different classes.

- Another point where atomic CSS frameworks shine is just sheer volume of banging code out. When the bulk of your output is visual, mastering tools based on shorthands like tailwind, emmet, etc can feel very productive.

- Purely atomic CSS frameworks can make some workflows more difficult, e.g. by having too granular call sites and not allowing "let's see what happens to the overall theme if I do this design change" iterative style of work, or because workflows that edit CSS on the fly via browser devtools can no longer be used to limit impact within semantic lines (e.g. "I want to change padding only on buttons, without breaking everything else that happens to depend on the same padding value"). There are both design-oriented and debugging-oriented workflows that are affected in similar ways.

- You generally don't get visual regressions at a distance w/ atomic CSS. This matters at organizations where desire for pixel precision and simultaneously fickle design teams are the norm. But conversely, "can we just change the font size to be a bit bigger across the site" can often run into issues of missed spots. On a similar note, designs may become inconsistent across a site over time due to the hyper local nature of atomic CSS oriented development.

- Custom rules may as well be written in APL[0]; they usually aren't documented and it takes a "you-gotta-know-them-to-know-them" sort of familiarity to be able to work with them (or get back to them after a while).

- There are some tools that mix and match atomic CSS with other paradigms. For example, styletron[0] can output atomic CSS for the bundling benefits, but looks like React styled components from a devexp perspective, and has rendering modes that output traditional-looking debug classes for chrome devtool oriented workflows.

The main theme to be aware of: proponents rarely talk of maintenance, so beware of honeymoon effect. Detractors often omit that traditional CSS (especially at scale) also requires a lot of diligence to maintain. So think about maintenance and how AOP[1] vs hyperlocal development workflows interact with your organization's design culture.

[0] https://www.styletron.org/

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aspect-oriented_programming

It is created, managed, and utilized by Uber. It includes a wide range of attractive components, with accessibility as the top focus. It is quick since it is built with the Styletron engine. Style overrides can be used to tweak themes, but in my experience, I've never required them because the design vibe they're trying for is precisely what I want.

[0] https://www.styletron.org/ [1] https://baseweb.design/blog/getting-started-with-styletron#getting-started-with-styletron

When we created the library, we were using styletron for our styles, and we wanted to bind the breakpoints we defined in @blocz/react-responsive with the breakpoints used for our styles.