This. They've rather missed the point of the cascade; perhaps he only writes very simple CSS?

I've always preferred being a little more verbose, if only to avoid hidden side effects and improve readability. You can always compress later if it really bothers you.

Quote: The shorthand properties are for setting multiple related properties at once. It’s not the case that any value you don’t specify when using a shorthand property does it get set – it gets set to a default value.

http://www.welcomebrand.co.uk/blog/please-stop-using-backgro...