As long as the styling code could remain simple to update independently of the business logic, it would be great to have it all part of the same internally-consistent dev system.
Then we rapidly started to "encapsulate", when OOP boomed. Now "packaging" is the main problem every programming language and OS has to solve. Today we end up implementing lightweight packages, so called components and we think it's a new idea to use statemachines to keep the interdependent component's state coherent. This idea was influenced by the boom of Interpred programming languages. Although 40 years ago, there were programs that only focused on allowing "components", which were "pluggable" modules back then, to be controlled by the DataFlow Pattern [1].
To formalize the main problem of the HTML,CSS and Javascript abstractions, blended into the DOM, we have to recognize that Data (Input) and UI (Output) are bound to States (Data Flows [2]). A solution to these problem is to use the FBP paradigm [3] in the browser engine and to implement the UI as an array of graphs. Usage of vectors allow the use of highly advanced mathematical solutions to be used to apply a optimization much easier than it is possible today, without rewriting the browser engine. For instance creating a UI now just means dragging and dropping items into a pane, which creates a matrix of number sequences that have relations to each other, yes basically a graph.
Because the UI and State is deterministic (except for Networks protocols!?), we can use the Knaster–Tarski theorem [4] to solve such DataFlow problems. Using Topological Data Analysis (TDA), we can even get deep level insight into UI & usage patterns that evolve and recur.
"Control of the language we use can be used to restrict our thinking. I find that this pattern is proving George Orwell's Newspeak [6] is similar to programming languages today.
What do I know, so please correct me when you think that there is no such pattern, or when you think something is wrong in what I said. So that others will profit from it.
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[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dataflow_programming
[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dataflow
[3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flow-based_programming
[4] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knaster%E2%80%93Tarski_theorem
[5] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_programming_languages_b...
i can't see where CSS or style becomes relevant in the problem you are defining. but, as i understand, what you defined seems to be the principle behind React. no?
I would like to add that all of this is highly similar to AI and rebuilding our brains. Because those are also highly networked units that can topologically independently compute in parallel and in batches.
What all of this leads us to is compression or entropy and the moral of the story is that entropy is the function of state.
PS: It took me 2hours to remember the word Cliometrics. I usually cannot forget things, but when I do, I remember the beginning of a word. Which is totally frustrating, however I suddenly remembered it.