A CSS Framework?

Having read an article on Content With Style about the idea of a CSS framework I became intrigued.  Is this a good idea or simply a dream that would never work in the real world.

The whole concept is to use a generic code base with "a set of naming conventions and a flexible base template".  This in theory would allow for rapid application development.  The article entitled "A CSS Framework" by Mike Stenhouse goes on to display several generic templates with different layouts using name conventions that could be reused across different templates.

Now I have to say my immediate reaction to this article was one of joy.  It would be a real help to any developer to have a "framework" from which they can develop their site templates, but then I got thinking, what about creativity and flair?

the death of creativity?

Now I don’t mean this literally but think about it.  If you use a standard template base and rely on this base code to build future sites where will the creativity come from.  We could end up going back to the days where all websites looked the same and there was a general lack of inspiration.   Now I totally understand what Mike is saying in his article and in my senses agree that we could do a lot more to create a code library from which we can quickly "rip off" old code to ruse with in a new site, however, I do feel that we should be constantly looking to progress and go forwards and therefore reusing the same code restricts this.

on the up side

Perhaps theres a case to use such a framework when considering small projects where the aim is not to develop something mind blowing but to simply provide a client with an online presence (Much as this site does for me).  There would also be a case that the more people that submit their code to such a framework the more creative people will be able to be with their coding or at least with the end product.  Take moo.fx or script.aculo.us for example, these are two libraries that have made it amazingly easy to create some breath taking affects and they have added a great deal of interaction to the end user.  Now that cannot be a bad thing.

maybe

So maybe it’s just the case then that a happy median should always be deployed to allow for fast development whilst also promoting the need for creative flair.  I guess only time will tell though…