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Aspects of modern HTML/CSS you may not be familiar with

(lyra.horse)
451 points todsacerdoti | 9 comments | 28 Aug 25 20:49 UTC | HN request time: 1.182s | source | bottom
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b_e_n_t_o_n ◴[29 Aug 25 04:20 UTC] No.45060146[source]▶
I really do appreciate the nesting they've added but looking at it as a whole, CSS is a really strange and in my humble opinion, a terrible language. Perhaps I'm just holding it wrong, but it's just so complicated and messy, it sometimes feels like you're just arranging arcane runes in different ways until you make it sort of work for you. It's both a system for styling text based on inheritance, and a layout system for block and inline elements, nested recursively but without inheritance, only containment. I think it was a mistake to combine styling and layout, and I don't feel like adding more and more capabilities to something fundamentally broken can fix it.
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archerx ◴[29 Aug 25 06:42 UTC] No.45060957[source]▶
“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.”

from the article is talking about people like you, who refuse to learn something properly but have the arrogance to think they know better.

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1. wmil ◴[29 Aug 25 07:57 UTC] No.45061409[source]▶
That's incredibly arrogant phrasing by both you and the author.

Here's a better explanation of the hostility towards CSS.

Nested flexbox had bugs in IE11, which wasn't end of lifed until 2022. The nested CSS in the article came out in December 2023.

CSS first came out in 1996.

The current state is much improved, but don't pretend there wasn't a solid 20+ years of sucking before that.

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2. bryanrasmussen ◴[29 Aug 25 08:16 UTC] No.45061506[source]▶
>Nested flexbox had bugs in IE11, which wasn't end of lifed until 2022.

how is I hate CSS because IE was poorly maintained a serious argument?

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3. icedchai ◴[29 Aug 25 12:39 UTC] No.45063315[source]▶
For a long time, from the late 90's until roughly 2012, IE was the most popular browser. You had no choice but to work with it. If it didn't "work on IE", it didn't work.
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4. archerx ◴[29 Aug 25 12:44 UTC] No.45063368[source]▶
I’ve always found CSS trivial to use and I’ve done some complex styles. I really wonder what people who complain about CSS are doing.
5. archerx ◴[29 Aug 25 12:45 UTC] No.45063381{3}[source]▶
Yea and people over exaggerated about it just like people over exaggerate things today like how hard CSS. The technology progress but people’s refusal to learn and desire to whine on the internet has stayed the same.
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6. archerx ◴[29 Aug 25 12:49 UTC] No.45063409[source]▶
They will cling to any cope they can because it’s easier than learning the tool properly.

“It’s not MY fault, it’s a browser no has used in 10 years fault! I can do no wrong!”

7. icedchai ◴[29 Aug 25 13:54 UTC] No.45064180{4}[source]▶
This is true, but the dominance of IE and its quirks, especially during the early 2000's, should not be underestimated. The browser situation, especially on Linux, was absolutely abysmal then.
8. bryanrasmussen ◴[30 Aug 25 16:20 UTC] No.45075839{3}[source]▶
I don't think flexbox really started being used until 2013 at the earliest, the comment I replied to was complaining about 2022 and a flexbox bug in IE. This 2012 thing doesn't seem to relate at all to the subject.

on edit: I know it was in WD in 2009 but I'm pretty sure it was around 2013 that people started playing with it. I think it started being popular in 2014-2015.

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9. icedchai ◴[30 Aug 25 21:57 UTC] No.45078340{4}[source]▶
My comment was more about the prevalence of IE in general, not flexbox specific. There were tons of IE quirks that had to be dealt with.