Web Development

I believe a lot of the negativity towards CSS stems from not really knowing how to use it. Many developers kind of just skip learning the CSS fundamentals in favor of the more interesting Java- and TypeScript, and then go on to complain about a styling language they don’t understand.

My negativity towards CSS is that it was made by people who used to style newspapers and the terminology plus way of thinking was just copy-pasted to the digital world where things aren't the same. For example, the display property has so many values that I don't understand... same goes for position and a bunch of other properties and how they interact. Sometimes setting one property can completely invalidate another one. position, display and width or height are examples of that.

The major problem with CSS is that it's a language which requires a lot of memorisation, not understanding. Unlike programming languages where you can reason why things have to be written a certain way from a point of understanding, with CSS the why is often "because it worked that way when I tried it".

To understand why certain things work or don't in CSS, you have to understand typesettings,maybe color theory, browser history, and a bunch of other things. It's not a surprise that most people memorise CSS stuff.

I compare it to our current school system: it's very good for people who can/enjoy memorizing things (at least until the test). For those who care more or are better at understanding and reasoning, it is hell. CSS is like our school system.

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