Advantages of using LESS

Advantages of using LESS

Today I am going to explain the Advantages of using LESS and will also explain why it is good as compared to CSS structure, in this blog.

Before this, if you want to know about LESS then, please read our article : What Is Less ?

So here is small definition of Less, “Less is a pre-processor of CSS and extends the features and capabilities of CSS. Less has many features like –

It allow variables, functions, mixins, Nested Rules, Operations, Importing other less files, and many more features that generates CSS. Yes, We write our code in LESS and when it runs it generates CSS.”

So Let’s explain the advantages of using LESS:

1. Less is a CSS pre-processor and after compilation it generates simple CSS which works across the browser.
2. Less is faster and easier.
3. Cleaner structure due to the use of Nesting
4. Less codes are simple and well organized as compared to CSS
5. Less supports cross-browser compatibility
6. Modification/Updation can be achieved faster because the use of Less variables
7. Less is time saving as compared to CSS
8. Coding is faster because the list of operators provided by Less
9. Use of Mixins resolves the reusability of code and embed all the properties of a class into another class by simple including the class name as one of its properties.
10. you can reuse your whole classes by referencing them in your rule-set
11. Less has many mathematical and operational functions, like- darken, lighten
12. you can import other LESS files in a LESS file, which may have variables define and then use that variables in imported Less file
13. Less has some predefined functions and you can also define your own functions and can use them throughout the code
14. Less compiles faster than any other pre-processor of CSS
15. Less also supports Lazy Loading feature, i.e. in the file you may define your variables anywhere, like before or after the use of variable.

So these are the basic advantages of LESS. Now we proceed towards the comparison between LESS and CSS, i.e. why LESS is good as compared to CSS.

As you already gone through the advantages of LESS, so now you may be interested in knowing why LESS is good as compared to CSS. There are some differences which makes LESS good in comparison of CSS.

CSS is a static language whereas LESS is a dynamic language which generates CSS after compilation of code. In CSS you write static code for designing the web page, but in LESS you may define code using variables and after compiling the code that variable values will be parsed and generates into CSS.

In CSS, modification may be quite complex, like if we say you need to change a color #000 to #fff in whole CSS file, so it may be quite difficult and need to change every where it has used, but in LESS you change a variable value one time, and after compilation that variable value will be changed in whole CSS through out the code where that variable is used.

In CSS you have to define same class many times with different operations but in LESS due to the feature of nesting and mixins you don’t need to define classes many times for different operations. There are lot of redundancy in CSS you may face.

CSS lengthen the code styling as compared to LESS. CSS is time consuming as compared to LESS, but yes it is easy to learn and write CSS in comparison of LESS. There is no reusability of code in CSS, and you can not use variables or your own functions like LESS.

And if you are using magento then using of LESS in modules is better idea than to use CSS, because in modules you need to write lot of code for designing.

So if you use CSS there you may face some difficulty and it also increases the file size because of code length, but if you use LESS your designing code will be well organised with lesser file size and it also increases the reusability of code.

That’s all in this article, hope it will help you to understand the advantages of LESS over CSS. Also, If you want to use LESS in Magento 2, we will guide you.