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Comment by whytaka | Hacker News Reader

I haven't used float in at least half a decade. CSS is easy.

I suspect, as with programming languages, some people think in a way that makes it easy for them and others think in a way that makes it hard.

Personally -- and I'm no web dev, so I probably don't count -- I think CSS is hard (maybe more irritating than hard, but in any case I wouldn't call it easy). In large part because the syntax is ugly, but also because it just doesn't "mesh" with me. If I'm reading it or writing it, I always feel like I'm having to decode it. But I can easily and happily work with some programming languages that most devs would cross the street to avoid.

Maybe that's also why some people are attracted to being web devs and others aren't?

As a user, nothing would thrill me more than if web pages just stopped using JS, though, so I am very happy that there is a feasible alternative to doing that that web devs could enjoy!

> I suspect, as with programming languages, some people think in a way that makes it easy for them and others think in a way that makes it hard.

No that often isn't the case. What is usually the case is that people don't bother the learning the basics. CSS is very easy. You can literally mess about with it on the fly in the browser and instantly see the result.

It is easier now than it has ever been. Since all the browsers for the most part implement the standards properly. Safari is the only standout and all the issues with that are well known.

> In large part because the syntax is ugly, but also because it just doesn't "mesh" with me. If I'm reading it or writing it, I always feel like I'm having to decode it. But I can easily and happily work with some programming languages that most devs would cross the street to avoid.

It is probably because you haven't learned the basics.

Whenever anyone has issues understanding CSS, they haven't bothered learning the basics and think they can flub their way through doing it.

I don't understand what is ugly about the syntax.

    <some element selector> {
        property_1: <some value>
        property_2: <some other value>
    }

It is about as straight forward as it could be. The difficulty with CSS is organisation as the web app becomes larger. There are well documented strategies on how to do this.

> As a user, nothing would thrill me more than if web pages just stopped using JS, though, so I am very happy that there is a feasible alternative to doing that that web devs could enjoy!

Non-trivial functionality requires JS. Basic Websites rarely require JS. So I am not sure what you are trying to say here.

Agreed.

Honestly the best thing I tell people to get some decent css basics is try to build a few stylus themes.

You can instantly see the results in devtools. I can't think of any other language that does that besides html, and even then you have to save and refresh.

Css is pretty easy to pick up in the chrome devtools at least because it has built in autocomplete. Showing you exactly what you can set the values too etc

CSS is easy, but it's not simple - it's enormously complex. Imagine the worst sins you could commit in a Ruby or Python codebase, multiply that by 100x and that's a normal CSS codebase.

The syntax has never been the issue imo.

I know what the issues are on a large CSS codebase. I specifically mentioned them.

You are over exaggerating the problems IMO. Yes it is a pain when you are left with a mess, but there are ways of dealing with that.

It probably seems easy to you because you are already familiar with the pitfalls. For me, CSS felt like an endless minefield of unexpected interactions. When you say that "CSS is easy", do you perhaps mean only the syntax and the basic language structure? I would agree, but that doesn't get you very far; actually trying to use CSS frustrated me so much that I simply don't touch anything related to the web at all anymore.

I learned the basics in maybe a day almost 20 years ago now. I could make a page template with PHP and style that in maybe a day. This was back when IE6 was dominate, I don't think Firebug was even a thing.

At that time I was a novice, didn't know what a debugger was (I printed everything out the the console / page) and didn't know what an IDE was (I think I was using Notepad++). I managed this feat by following the tutorial.

The biggest problem I had was that I couldn't understand why centre, and colour didn't work. Once I realised that I had to spell everything in American English, that problem quickly went away.

I too learned the basics of CSS back in the IE6 era, and I had no trouble following the steps of the tutorials, using similarly primitive tools. If I'd had an experience like yours, I suppose my career might have gone in a different direction. Instead, though, as soon as I tried to take what I thought I had learned from those tutorials and make something of my own, I smashed into a wall of chaos; nothing seemed to be predictable. I knew the browser could do what I was imagining, because I had been making it do that for years already via tables and repeating GIFs and all that, but trying to do it with CSS got me nowhere.

> It is probably because you haven't learned the basics.

That's not the case with me, honestly. It's just a poor mesh with my brain is all.

> So I am not sure what you are trying to say here.

I'm trying to say that I dislike the use of JS, at least for common websites, and I'm in favor of anything that could reduce its use.

I don't understand how that is the case when you say you can figure out much more complicated programming languages. It strains credulity.

I am a former front-end developer that managed to figure out AWS, Go, C++, C#, JavaScript, Python, OpenGL and have done a LFS build. I am not some sort of mega genius. I just had to go through and read the correct material and learn the basics.

The syntax of CSS is great.

Any problems have nothing to do with that.

> I always feel like I'm having to decode it. But I can easily and happily work with some programming languages that most devs would cross the street to avoid.

Those languages happen to be "imperative"? – the few backend devs I know who at least sort of vibe with CSS are all used to declarative programming. I think that might be at least one of the reasons?

I have used it recently, it’s now back to doing what it was supposed to, originally: Float objects into text.

> Unless you use the subset of CSS that you have decided to learn + use. Not unlike C++.

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