html - google's use of class names

Question

i noticed a very strange way of naming classes in G+ and gmail..

example: a-b-h-Jb a-b-Rf-dB a-Rf-dB d-s-r (see G+'s code for yourself!)

who the hell does that? impossible to keep track of what you did in future.. same for gmail.

it is a known way of doing css that i am unfamiliar with? is it OOCSS? if a googler is reading this, can you please explain? Or if you are not the one who wrote the code, then please share your thoughts or prove that i am a dumb ass and don't know about a fairly common css naming 'good practice' (can i even call it that?)

Answer 1

Google uses something called the Google Web Toolkit (or simply GWT) to compile Java "applications" into their Javascript/HTML/CSS counterparts. GWT was used for GMail and Google Wave and my assumption is that it was also used for G+.

The GWT "compiler" (CS purists would never call GWT a compiler but the term fits) programatically names Javascript functions, CSS classes, HTML form IDs, etc. so they are almost never something legible.