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Comment by Wowfunhappy | Hacker News Reader

If screen reader accessibility was the only thing holding us back from a WYSIWYG dream, I would advocate just maintaining separate content-only versions of all pages.

I don't think that's actually where we are though. As you touch on, code is inherently necessary in order to build responsive pages. A static layout will never know how to reflow itself when the window size changes; it needs code to define that behavior.

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>"A static layout will never know how to reflow itself when the window size changes; it needs code to define that behavior."

I know what you mean wrt fixed-width layouts, but want to point out that reflow is the default browser behavior in the absence of problematic markup and styling rules. That's the beauty of mobile-first RWD and progressive enhancement when done right; the starting point is just the content, full stop. The first media query is the absence of support for media queries. Then min-width rules to guide layout changes across progressively larger breakpoints.

> A static layout will never know how to reflow itself when the window size changes; it needs code to define that behavior.

This is no longer true. CSS grid solves this completely.

https://youtu.be/7kVeCqQCxlk

Changing the layout of a page just because the window was resized is moronic.

Because if a page designed for ~1200 pixels across looks like crap on a mobile phone in portrait mode, it's the user's fault for using a damn phone?

I don't think it's realistic to declaratively define a UI that works well under both a 15 inch screen and a 2 inch screen. One is probably going to have to programmatically take different courses of action under each of those scenarios. For example, for mobile you'll probably want to split actions into multiple screens that are best done in a single screen with a big monitor.

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