Comment by dtagames
4 years ago
> The end effect is that CSS isn't approachable for even seasoned graphic artists let alone laymen; another effect being browser complexity resulting in monopolies.
This is so true. CSS has become a multi-headed Hydra whose parts appear completely unrelated to each other. I've been a developer and designer for more than 20 years and I have no idea what the parameter names and orders are for position, versus grids, versus float, etc. It's parameter soup. Who said the hardest part of programming is naming things? The CSS folks didn't get the memo.
To do any real work with CSS means you have memorize a bunch of conflicting weirdness and/or keep a reference page open at all times. The idea of CSS frameworks to simplify or fix this doesn't work because, in order to write or debug what you create in those frameworks, you must know regular old CSS!
It's turtles all the way down.
> To do any real work with CSS means you have memorize a bunch of conflicting weirdness and/or keep a reference page open at all times.
I agree with CSS being complicated, but this statement is true for pretty much everything. Not a day goes by I don’t close 20+ reference tabs at the end of the day, not counting what I closed throughout the day. It’s simply impossible to be a polyglot and not use references.
This is certainly true and we had paper books open on the desk at all times at IBM.
Who said the hardest part of programming is naming things? Some people do a better job than others. CSS is really wildly inconsistent within in itself. Is it another case of worse is better? Ugh. Probably.