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["Aaron J. Angel" <thatoneguy AT aaronjangel.us>]

On 12/04/2012 09:15 AM, Travis McCrea wrote:
> I think it's silly to say that the theme is bad because it tries to
> minimize weird browser issues. It doesn't rely on it, it simply is
> enhanced by it, and most responsive designs have some sort of browser
> singilzation setups... also it's not helpful to just say "reset is
> trash" perhaps you can provide constructive feedback on it?

A reset stylesheet is an absurd way to deal with browser
incosistencies.  It amounts to defining quick and dirty "defaults" for
every element possible, forcing designers to write rules to override
whatever you just defined.  Why bother doing twice what you could do once?

Having spent the better part of $3,000 on Drupal customizations that
included a new theme built on a reset stylesheet, I can personally
attest to its harm.  Procrastination was highly visible, based on the
faulty assumptions that (a) the elements left unstyled won't be used and
(b) reset will take care of it anyway if new elements are used.  Undoing
the damage wasn't as simple as removing the reset stylesheet entirely or
even removing a select few of the rules.  The subsequent stylesheets
amounted to a half-hearted effort, the result of which yielded even more
procrastination as I didn't feel like rewriting the entire thing. 
Unfortunately, a proper fix will be rewrite the entire thing.

If a designer isn't going to restyle every element he "resets," reset
serves only to further the designer's procrastination.  On the other, if
a designer is going to restyle every element he resets, then he can just
as easily eliminate the reset code with no ill effect.

> GPL vs BSD is a deep philosophical debate that I don't think OpenNIC
> needs to get into. Our focus should be on pragmatism.

Such consideration is very pragmatic.  It would be unwise to release
code under a license chosen haphazardly, just as it would be unwise to
incorporate third-party code into our projects without considering the
implications its license.