On Sep 13, 2010, at 6:58 PM, Philip Taylor (Webmaster, Ret'd) wrote: > Gabriele, I don't understand : > >> In a past project I used the following approach: >> >> @import "base.css"; >> @import "layout.css"; >> @import "typography.css"; >> @import "colors.css"; >> >> The server-side developer (who used Ruby) encountered several problems when >> trying to merge these files properly and in the correct order, > > Why was it his job (the server-side developer's) to > "merge these files properly and in the correct order" ? > Surely merging takes place in the browser, not server-side ?
Hmm, just guessing. The files are created by the designer, front-end coder as separate blocks - and maybe they are served that way on a test server prior to going live. To improve performance for the live site, they merged on the server into one file: less http requests for the end user, better minification, more efficient gzip compression (one file !) and so on - faster delivery to the end user, faster browser rendering. PS you do know that @import is a huge slowdown/bottleneck for IE <9 in particular the first @import blocks _all_ subsequent downloads; that is: the 2nd @import has to wait for the 1st to be downloaded etc. PS 2 I always find it cumbersome to work with multiple files like that and I think I've dropped using @import 3 years ago or so. Philippe --- Philippe Wittenbergh http://l-c-n.com/ ______________________________________________________________________ css-discuss [cs...@lists.css-discuss.org] http://www.css-discuss.org/mailman/listinfo/css-d List wiki/FAQ -- http://css-discuss.incutio.com/ List policies -- http://css-discuss.org/policies.html Supported by evolt.org -- http://www.evolt.org/help_support_evolt/
