Chapter 7. From prototype to production
This chapter covers
- Best practices for generating URLs to your assets
- Authoring stylesheets without needing a web server
- Tips and tricks for designing in the browser
- How to compile and structure stylesheets for production
Websites can be so simple, a kid can build one in a few minutes with a text editor and a hosting account. Of course, websites can also be complex, have dynamic content, and need to scale to millions of visitors a day. It’s safe to say that the web encompasses one of the broadest ranges of expertise of any software technology field. From your high school home page to Google, the web can be microoptimized at every layer.
The complexity of the web isn’t just limited to HTML markup. Due to their heavy reliance on external resources like images, other CSS files, and fonts, stylesheets can become a serious maintenance burden.
In this chapter, you’ll learn how to use Compass helpers and configuration to generate URLs to your assets, making it easy to transition from prototype to production. By using these helper functions, you’ll have the freedom to author your stylesheets and HTML without a web server and the usual headaches that would result from that approach; you’ll also be setting the stage for some great performance optimizations that we’ll cover in the next chapter.