Parcel CSS: A New CSS Parser, Transformer, and Minifier, a New CSS Parser

Parcel CSS, the latest masterpiece from Parcel creator Devon Govett, is a CSS parser, converter and compressor written in Rust. This brings a refreshing vitality to the CSS processing field.

A few weeks ago, I had envisioned a CSS tool similar to esbuild : cssbuild . It can handle imports, packages (currently usually rely on Sass), and runs at extremely high speeds. Perhaps it will be plugin-based and compatible with the PostCSS API so that existing PostCSS plugins can run on it. It can also generate Source Map and make code modifications, and maybe even run Sass. Such tools can stimulate the vitality of the CSS ecosystem like esbuild .

Although Parcel CSS is close to what I imagined, it does not seem to have packaging capabilities at the moment (at least not standalone). I guess it's because a new syntax needs to be invented for this. The ambiguity of Sass when using @import (same as native CSS) may be the lesson, and I don't blame anyone for not wanting to repeat the same mistakes. This is indeed a tricky problem, as inventing the syntax will classify it into different tool categories. But I think it's worth it, because breaking down CSS into smaller files and packaging it in development is a common practice without having to rely entirely on Parcel (it can be packaged).

So, why use Parcel CSS to handle CSS? According to the documentation, the reasons are as follows:

• CSS compression
• Automatically add vendor prefix
• Handle CSS Modules (classic library, not native)
• Generate Source Map

(Initially, I thought it took advantage of other tools to accomplish these tasks, as tools like Autoprefixer and cssnano appear in the project's package.json file. But Devon's comments confirm that Parcel CSS is a replacement for these tools and it doesn't rely on them.)

There is also a killer feature! I think the most powerful feature of Parcel CSS is "syntax lowering", which means you can use future CSS features (such as nesting) and then process it into code that the browser can understand, just like Babel handles JavaScript. This is similar to the spirit of postcss-preset-env.

And, it's extremely fast:

Can Parcel CSS become an ecosystem?

The biggest question is: if Parcel CSS becomes the preferred CSS parser, will we get plugins? If we get the plugin, will it become a powerful ecosystem like the PostCSS plugin?

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