CSS Wisdom from Goofus and Gallant

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Chris Coyier on

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I found some old Highlights magazines and these Goofus and Gallant characters sure had some prescient wisdom to share.

Goofus sneezes his overly specific selectors and !important rules all over the codebase. Gallant carefully follows the low specificity naming conventions of the project and cleans up after his messes.

Goofus blasts his opinions around like fact and makes open conversation difficult. Gallant helps lead discussions with his peers about the possibilities, advantages, and disadvantages of different choices.
Goofus needs a higher z-index value for his widget so he selfishly makes it 9999999999. Gallant makes a reduced test case of has problem and shows his co-workers.
Goofus “fixes” the design bug by adding an inline style. Gallant figures out where the design pattern went wrong so he can address the root cause.
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Comments

  1. Janet Atkinson
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    Love it!

  2. Rob
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    These are awesome! Looks like the 2nd-to-last one needs a has/his switch, btw.

  3. Dean Peterson
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    The business love Goofus he’s a miracle worker. He get’s things done.

    The business can’t understand why Gallant takes so much time to get simple things done.

  4. Kyle Jenkins
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    Forwarded to the whole dev team at Highlights… These are great!

  5. Luis Betancourt
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    hahah , that was funny.

  6. gopalakrishnan
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    Wow!!! A moral story for CSS syllabus. Cool

  7. Damian Muszkiet
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    Sweet ^.^

  8. Robert Diaz
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    This is the best!! Flexin’ the old css funny bone :)

  9. Anselm Urban
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    Haha :D love it!

  10. Melissa
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    This is amazing.

  11. Aslam
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    I have to change the way i code :)

  12. Steve C.
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    I attempt at all times to be Gallant… but when timeframes, budgets, and frustration over a site that has already been butchered by others plays into the picture…. well, sometimes I find myself becoming Goofus. Grit my teeth and say, “Ugh!!! Forget this… inline style and and an !important reference and I’m done!”

    Usually, though, it’s only after the time, budget, demands, QA cow has already been let out of the barn.

    Anyone else see this happen?

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