Pulling the Style Out of CSS Teaser
Channel: Ian Obermiller
Date: 2015-02-16

"Pulling the Style Out of CSS" is Ian Obermiller's talk proposal for CascadiaJS 2015: https://github.com/cascadiajs/2015.cascadiajs.com/issues/260

As web developers, we go to great lengths to write scalable CSS. We use preprocessors, naming conventions, and a host of other rules and best practices. In many cases the goal is to work around some of the things CSS is designed to do, such as selectors and the cascade. What if there were a better way?

Instead, let's drop the "Cascading" and the "Sheets" from CSS. Building on [Christopher Chedeau's introduction to using inline styles with React](https://speakerdeck.com/vjeux/react-css-in-js), Ian walks you through what it takes to convert an [app](https://github.com/ianobermiller/nuclearmail) from plain old CSS to plain old JavaScript. While you get to avoid "specificity hell" and use all the niceties of JS, we'll take a look at how you can replicate the little things we take for granted in our CSS workflow, like :hover states, animations, media queries, and vendor prefixing, and how we can use React specific features to make styles even better. There are also some [code](https://github.com/ianobermiller/nuclearmail/blob/master/src/js/Cesium.js) [spoilers](https://github.com/FormidableLabs/radium) on GitHub already if you've put down the pitchforks and are curious.

Ian Obermiller is a front end engineer at Facebook. He's built Atlas, one of the
largest React+Flux applications in the world, from the ground up over the
last year and half, and loves to experiment with open source projects to
push the boundaries of web application development.

Ian is an active contributor to the React community, particularly around
Flux, and recently ignited a passion for spreading new ideas and best
practices at React.js Conf 2015.