Community projects that use LESS about less-docs

[SomMeri]

These had been mentioned in various less.js issues:

• [http://mateuszkocz.github.io/3l/](Lots of Love for LESS) - mixins library,
• https://github.com/danielkatz/less-bidi - mixins to help with bi-directional styling
• https://github.com/mrkrupski/LESS-Dynamic-Stylesheet - mixins library.

[jonschlinkert]

@SomMeri thanks!

[matthew-dean]

The obvious: Bootstrap

I'm using 3L like @SomMeri mentioned.

Also: http://lesshat.com/

[SomMeri]

qooxdoo uses less too.

[seven-phases-max]

I don't want to be a nag, but https://github.com/search?q=LESS+extension%3Aless&type=Repositories&ref=searchresults gives ~7K repos (not counting forks)

[SomMeri]

Most of those are not projects using less, they are projects having "less" in description or name:

• MochiKit makes JavaScript suck less"
• A web-based IRC client that makes IRC less intimidating and easier to use.
• Open Source Social Network written in Ruby on Rail by Less Everything

[seven-phases-max]

they are projects having "less" in description or name:

Notice that this search also contains: 'extension:less'. But never mind, I mean even if we cut a half of those projects as not actually using LESS, there're still thousands... OK, even if it's just only a hundred, how we could list them? :)

[SomMeri]

I did not looked at link, I only through its results :) and most of it did not seemed relevant.

My understanding is that there are multiple reasons for such list:

1.) Showcase - look what you can do with less + you would not be first one to use us. Bootstrap is in this category. This would not be that much unusual, project often have showcase page. Example from top of head: antlr. Maybe it is just me, but I'm more likely to believe that tool/framework is a good choice for the big project I'm just starting if I'm not the first one trying to do big project in it.

2.) Showcase - once you know less, you can easily leverage these. Languages start to be fully useful only after there is an ecosystem around them - frameworks, libraries you can build up on and tools you can use.

3.) Learning&Inspiration - some use cases may not be apparent on the first sight. It the list contains variety of projects/use cases then someone may realize less could be useful in his own projects. Suddenly you are able to add cool feature in short time, although you considered it too time consuming or never through of it before.

4.) Potentially useful resources for developers - I usually go through such lists to find out whether there is something that would be useful to learn. 3l would be in this category. Alternatively, you can learn how to do stuff from other projects. (I tried to find less based frameworks a while ago, and it was not that easy.)

So, basically, we do not want to list everything with .less file in it, we want selection of various big or useful or successful projects.

[seven-phases-max]

+1. Though all this of course makes making of such list a bit more complicated. I.e. beside the link itself we need to provide some more info behind it. Not just a description but also some grounding of why the particular project to be chosen to be listed etc. (though I guess n-of-stars or something like that would be enough for a stuff like twbs) . And, yes, some kind of "categories" is probably would not harm too, for example:

• General purpose theming/front-end frameworks:
  • Bootstrap
  • etc.
• Javascript libraries for autoprefixing using LESS as front-end:
  • LESS Hat
  • etc.
• Etc.
  • etc.

[jonschlinkert]

beside the link itself we need to provide some more info behind it.

I recommend that we only use the description provided on the repos themselves - which shows in search results. I like the idea of categorizing a bit, but we don't need to over-think this page. This can be improved over time, and we can change how the projects are categorized when it makes sense.

I will also have Assemble automatically links to each page that say something like "View the source for this page" and "Edit this page". The "edit" link will essentially bring the user to a page that says something like, "If you want to edit this page, GitHub will fork the project for you and you can start editing the page in the browser... then submit a pr". Which is nice b/c it can all be done in the browser.

[seven-phases-max]

I like the idea of categorizing a bit, but we don't need to over-think this page.

That makes it a bit useless imho, for example I have a folder named "LESS frameworks" containing about 50 projects. I downloaded those when I was about learning LESS (I was hoping to find some interesting usage/technique/design-patterns there eventually). Now guess how many times I actually looked into there since then? Right, zero. Simply because each time I needed to find something specific it was easier and faster to use G or GH (or whatever) search facilities. OK, the list can be limited to (for example) 20 projects, but then we still need to invent some rules for how to actually limit it.

[jonschlinkert]

Now guess how many times I actually looked into there since then?

This list will mostly be useful to newcomers who want to know, at a glance, what kinds of projects are out there using Less.js.

but then we still need to invent some rules for how to actually limit it.

No, I don't want to do this yet. I think it's a bad idea to over-think things like this before we even know where the value to users is. Also, my background is in analytics/SEO/SEM and marketing. It's much more effective to base decisions like this on actual usage/traffic patterns and stats that will need to build up over time - versus guessing based on your own preferences or opinions. As we get data, we tweak the page.

it's also worth mentioning that I have a strategic partnership with Google in the works. they will be helping with some of this ;-)

[seven-phases-max]

Well, I guess I've got your idea now. OK, I just wanted to be sure that I won't be punished when I will actually post a list of one hundred projects ;-) (Though I don't mean I'll do that right now :)

[jonschlinkert]

Lol, not at all! You can just do what you think is best. We all trust your judgement

Sent from my iPhone

On Jan 6, 2014, at 5:33 PM, Max Mikhailov [email protected] wrote:

Well, I guess I've got you idea. OK, I just wanted to be sure that I won't be punished when I will actually post a list of one hundred projects ;-) (Well, though I don't mean I'll do that right now :)

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Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub.

[lukeapage]

@seven-phases-max I don't think we need to limit it. I think we should just exclude projects that won't be useful / are outdated etc. and not punish ourselves if the list isn't definitive.

[lukeapage]

Great work Max. I guess this can be closed for now?