Flavors vs.Themes for CSS Libraries

    Colors aside there's a lot more happening in css themes that one needs to develop or maintain. So I've asked myself countless times if I should just create my own Css library but time was always against me. I think having bootstrap as a base line is a good starting point. Not only for my sake but non front-end developers. As a front-end developer organization with my teams is critical. Every application sooner or later ends up with too many developers doing their “own thing” especially with the styles if there is not standard or company brand. Don't get me wrong the freedom can sometimes be great for a creative projects. However when looking to creating a brand, my applications need to force some rules. I'm not looking to challenge other developers on their approach to new things or change the way they develop. If I can include them in my work flow and at the same time organize them then I will.
    So what I'm leading up to is this idea flavors instead of themes. For awhile I've been working on my npm packages called flavorstrap. Currently it only works locally, so you'll have to look at the package it's self to see how it works. Or if you want to do without it you can look at my bootstrap-sidenav-component also on github. Flavorstrap is really just a bundle of packages and follows a work-flow I've created to help my team without changing the way they develop! It's awesome I can now let anyone develop however they choose just make sure they use separate files (per developer). Later I go in and change it to sass if it's not already. Then I just merge and cleanup the css for production but what's the difference from a theme!?
To do this I create a couple of rules for myself in order to make things easier for myself. The first rule is that I'm are not going to work against the base css library; interface and leverage it. This is different from a css theme, which is just another css that seats on top the base css library. A flavor is the opposite, it allows you to integrate rather than seat on top the css library. This doesn't just work with bootstrap it could work with any css library if created, plus your dependencies with a given css library would be clearer. Meaning that if a class became deprecated, the sass compiler would simply fail. Giving you an idea where to make changes with your flavor of the css library.

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