Performance about jss

[kof]

Browser needs to check less css rules when adding elements to the dom.

[trusktr]

@kof But you lose the styles you detached? What am I missing? Do you reattach after adding elements?

[kof]

if you elements need your styles they need to be attached of course, don't understand the confusion.

[trusktr]

@kof I thought maybe there was something I was missing. It's like saying "Don't add any DOM elements to your page and it will perform better." :P

[kof]

Its about having styles for dom elements which use them. Not more not less. And yess less dom elements results in better performance.

[trusktr]

Ah I see the use case: when you have an html component, attach a stylesheet when the component has been added to the DOM, remove the associated stylesheet when the component is removed from the dom, so your styles morph in sync with your DOM structure. This is unlike the current approaches where all styles simply exist at all times regardless of what the DOM looks like. +1 I get it now. I think you're imagining something like that. :D

[trusktr]

This is interesting. See what type of problems the w3c spec has gotten us into? Cascading stylesheets seem to be a source of poor performance. At my job, in one of the older apps, the stylesheet is monolithic, with various routes of the app relying on overrides/cascades, and or just ignoring the existing classes and using all new ones for completely separate styles that exist in the same monolithic stylesheet.

And why does traditional HTML/CSS/JavaScript make it so difficult to make apps that feel "native"?

This why things like Famo.us and your awesome jss come into existence: to avoid the pitfalls of traditional HTML5/CSS/JavaScript. Instead of just creating components using traditional HTML from the get go, we are rethinking the whole way that things should work in the first place to get around the pitfalls of traditional HTML.

Thinking in more of a bigger picture, the actual redesign needs to happen in the underlying implementation of the browser, but that's a huge undertaking. I wish I could just snap my fingers and have QML-like performance in HTML. (try QML at least once if you haven't, it's free, and compare it to HTML. You might be amazed!)

[trusktr]

A little off topic, but maybe not in the grand scheme of things: A browser that would allow users to browse both QML-based and HTML-based sites might be revolutionary.

[kof]

Neither html nor css is designed for applications. I am pretty sure any of systems are better for this than what we use. However with right abstractions it can deliver good performance.

[kof]

I would be glad to see your findings about jss written down in a blogpost :)