Standardize syntax

https://github.com/stylus/stylus/wiki/1.0.0#what-to-change-in-syntax proproses some great changes to the syntax:

• $ preluding every variable
• : separating property: value’s in declarations
• etc.

This has been in the proposal since Dec. 30th 2013.

Can we please just make this the standard already so every Stylus project in the world isn’t using a different syntax flavor and people like the maintainer of Emmet don’t keep forcing colonless syntax down everyone’s throat because they personally like colonless syntax.

Using Stylus on CodePen is really annoying because I can’t configure Emmet to not be stupid.

2013…

[spiralx]

Surely given the proposal for enforcing the $ prefix for variables, it would be:

$hash = {
  value: 100%
}
.foo
  width $hash.value // selector with no props below, lets throw an error

My personal view is that

• the $ prefix for variables is something I do anyway now and you get used to it quickly

• enforcing : between property names and values seems unnecessary with var-prefixes:

  $color = #444
  $hash = {
    margin: 1em,
    width: 40vw
  }
  
  div
    {$hash}
    color $color
  
    h3
      color $color
      margin 0 0 $hash.margin
  

  and it should cope better with current selector vs. variable ambiguity.

• brace-less and indented layout is by far the biggest reason for me to use Stylus - without it I might as well use SASS and take advantage of its larger development community and usage.

[janwirth]

@eddiemonge I could not agree more. I wrote a small paper comparing SASS/LESS/Stylus and Stylus had by far the most terse syntax, powerful features in general as well as transparency. If I got a kick from shitting $$$ all over my codebase I would write PHP. Supporting both indent and braces syntax severely shallows the learning curve as you are using a CSS superset with the possibility to outgrow the last millenium.

I do not understand the need for all the sigils. In fact, I think it may actually screw up many existing stylus projects. We could solve the hash-semicolons problem through prefixing hashes with a sigil to distinguish them from primitives and selectors.

If the stylus syntax is being castrated I will fork it and call it io.styl or something 🎌 as the syntax is what makes stylus so great.