[jszymborski]

You don't have to include the whole library. Modernizr allows you to customize the package to only detect for features you need.

While writing your own feature detection is still probably lightweight (although not by much if you customize modernizr correctly), you're not going to get all the edgecases Modernizr will unless you spend A LOT of time on it.

http://modernizr.com/download/

[err4nt]

I get the tradeoff, the problem is when you have 90 projects that customize the library for 90 different needs, and then you want to update those libraries. At that point, you've basically made 90 Modernizr forks. Does it make more sense for you to maintain 90 forks of a library whose codebase you aren't developing and try to keep them current, or to bake-in the parts of Modernizr (with its edge-cases included) right into your codebase for each project, and then only have to maintain your own codebase, instead of your codebase + a library fork.

If you're using the majority of Modernizr tests it makes sense to use the full library, but for the most part me and the other devs I've talked to usually drop the whole library in for ease of maintenance, but mainly use it for one feature alone: touchscreen detection.

Lately I've tried putting some of my HTML on a diet by replacing my need for Modernizr for the purpose of touschreen detection with this snippet:

    if(('ontouchstart' in window)||(navigator.msMaxTouchPoints>0)){
      // code for touchscreens here…
    }

This keeps the test and the result together in the code, and eliminates the need for a library, which can also be an additional single-point-of-failure outside of your control, especially if hosted by a CDN.

[robotfelix]

It's worth noting that each custom build includes a commented line with a URL to download the latest version with the same custom set of detects. A great timesaver!

[chc]

If you're "baking in" parts of Modernizr into your codebase, it seems to me you're still maintaining 90 forks, but it's more work and the provenance of the forked code is less clear.

[err4nt]

Suppose you're baking a cake, but it's a custom cake and you're not 100% sure you have the best recipe for frosting.

Suppose Modernizr were a book, and each feature Modernizr tests for was a recipe. What I'm suggesting is this: Instead of going to the library and checking out the entire recipe book just to refer to the icing recipe, just copy out the list of ingredients and leave the book on the shelf. you're customizing the recipe anyway, so if you just add their list of ingredients to the steps you're writing for your own customized icing it's going to be easier in the future than if you write your recipe steps with a little note that says: 'refer to ingredients on page 24 of Modernizr Cookbook'. I also think buying a personal copy of the book for the same purpose is overkill - it makes more sense just to list the specific ingredients you want to reference directly inside the new recipe you are writing and keep it all on the same page, plus not have to worry about where that recipe book is every time you want to whip up a new batch of icing.

[chc]

How is generating a customized Modernizr build with just the tests you need equivalent to checking out an entire recipe book for one recipe? Either way, you are just getting the tests you need.