Using reset css - any reasonable drawbacks/counterarguments?

Question

Hi,

So far, including a CSS reset was a standard step for me at the very beginning of web page designing.

I heard once the opinion that this is bad; however I had no opportunity to ask the guy who said that for the reasons.

Now I'd like to know what drawbacks can you specify.

Answer 1

Using a CSS reset means you, in many cases, will have many rules that are not necessary. You will first set body { margin: 0; padding: 0; } in reset.css and then set body { margin: 0 auto; padding: 20px; } in style.css or something, when only specifying the latter would give the same result. And will you really use all those obscure elements that are included in the reset?

What I sometimes do is that I add a reset.css, start coding, and then I check my page in Dragonfly or Firebug and there I will see which rules from reset.css are overridden. Those I can remove from reset.css, and in the end the file is likely to be very small or empty.