WDR #1: Versioned Style Sheets
Post from November 15, 2008 (ā» June 1, 2020), filed under Web Development.
This and many other posts are also available as a pretty, well-behaved ebook: On Web Development.
Ladies and gents, all I presentās⦠the Web Dev Report, issue #1:

Transcript. (Marked up in reference to § 10.3, yet missing the dialog
element.)
- Guy 1:
- Hey man, howās it going?
- I gotta tell you⦠these versioned style sheets damn rockā¦!
- So, like default-20080301.css, default-20080623.css, default-20081012.cssā¦
- Guy 2:
- (What the $#%@.)
- Guy 1:
- Itās sooo cool! Every time we modify our main style sheet we just append the date and have only certain pages use that CSS file. No messing with the old #$%@!
- Guy 2:
- So you treat your one site as several sites?
- Guy 1:
- Er.
- Guy 2:
- And with a redesign you want the kick to either update all versioned style sheets or update all documents to use the new default CSS?
- Guy 1:
- Errā¦
- Guy 2:
- And HTML/CSS prototypes are a waste of time and money, right?
- Guy 1:
- What the $#%@ man, leave me alone!
āVersionedā wasnāt known to Merriam-Webster and other dictionaries but itās so popular, I decided to keep with it. More importantly, letās see what happens to the report. Will there be an issue #2?
About Me

Iām Jens Oliver Meiert, and Iām an engineering manager and author. Iāve worked as a technical lead for Google, Iām close to the W3C and the WHATWG, and I write and review books for OāReilly. Other than that, I love trying things, sometimes including philosophy, art, and adventure. Here on meiert.com I share some of my views and experiences.
If you have questions or suggestions about what I write, please leave a comment (if available) or a message.
Comments (Closed)
-
On November 15, 2008, 13:09 CET, Zacky said:
Accessible Comic š
-
On November 15, 2008, 14:23 CET, Dennis Frank said:
Will there be issue #2?
So mean versioned Web Dev Reports?
Looking forward to this.
-
On November 15, 2008, 14:33 CET, Phil Nash said:
Who does this?!!!
-
On November 15, 2008, 17:27 CET, Jens Oliver Meiert said:
Zacky, Dennis, š
Phil, oh, thatās not too uncommon I fear. And still, itāstyle sheet versioning, this wayādoesnāt make much sense, no.
-
On November 15, 2008, 17:56 CET, Tony said:
Accessible and sincere, plus itās a comic so is good for the heart, great! Iāll be waiting for the next one
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On November 16, 2008, 9:52 CET, Kroc Camen said:
You should do one about the accessibility benefits of:
<html><body><object ... /></body></html>
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On November 17, 2008, 16:37 CET, Andrei said:
Iāve never heard of āversionedā stylesheetsā¦
The closest Iāve ever come across are āsectionalā stylesheets (navigation, content, reset, footer, etc.), but those make a ton of sense - you simply āsaveā the old section stylesheet into an archive folder, and overwrite the one on the server with the updated one.
Easy.
-
On November 22, 2008, 1:10 CET, Jens Nedal said:
I love that one. I thought versioning was left to CVS or SVN? In what sinkhole would i have to live to try versioning my files in this fashion. I shiver at the thought of someone out there actually doing it that way.
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On December 18, 2008, 18:45 CET, yurik said:
and why is it bad to version number style sheets?
Iām feeling like the āerrā guy right nowā¦and to reply the question that you might be thinking: no i donāt version my style sheets (yet)
unless i figure out the reason why not to.
note1: i use server side language that combines all the style sheets into one big one, so when changing my style sheet version number, i just change a small thing in my server side script, and everything will work fine with no time wastedā¦or will it?.
note2: I know that Etags were invented for this style sheet file version separation, but they arenāt much help.
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