What are the general rules on when to use OOCSS?

[iamacatperson]

I mean what are the general rules on whether to use an object as something that would be reusable (e.g. buttons / tables / media) VS something that would most likely than not be unique (e.g. intro section with a class called “intro”).

Of course, we might find out that the intro section style might need to be re-used later for some other part but we have already previously named it “intro”, thinking that it’s quite a unique section on its own. To solve it, we can re-name “intro” as a generic “box-1” so whatever the content is, we are able to use it.

Should we stop naming our classes as **header, footer, main-content** and use **box-1, box-2, box-3**, etc. so we can conveniently re-use them for any other parts without changing the existing class name or repeating the same styles for a different class name?

I just want to strike a balance between the two.

[KeithPickering]

I just like to make sure my classes are as reusable as possible.

I might start off with a bunch of semantic class names, only to realize that I’m just making the same declarations over and over again in my CSS. When I notice this happening, I’ll create a more reusable class and use the semantic class names for fine-tuning.

That said, I don’t think class names should have to be semantic—the semantics of class names doesn’t really affect anybody (since when do screen readers care about class names?).

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