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Ask HN: Is it just me, or is CSS too damn hard?

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Re: Ask HN: Is it just me, or is CSS too damn hard?

#201

Post by Grumbledour »

mellow-lake-day wrote: post #163

The Bootstrap CSS framework is the easy button of CSS It makes writing CSS enjoyable and fun https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wesUO81YX0U

No, really, it isn't. It just teaches you to fill up your html with a lot of useless classes while teaching you nothing about css, unless you want to change how it looks, in which case you have to basically rewrite everything.

It may be a good substitute for a first draft, but your website will be much leaner and cleaner without it.

Also, I can never get over the fact, that the bootstrap devs seem incapable of delivering UI elements like dropdowns without additional javascript or can't even include a no-js fallback. That doesn't really create confidence in their abilities as web developers.

Re: Ask HN: Is it just me, or is CSS too damn hard?

#203

Post by IfOnlyYouKnew »

notjustanymike wrote: post #16

I work as a frontend architect and UX lead (yes, it's tiring), and you're encountering a common problem. Javascript is logical (sort of...), and a lot like learning math. It's fairly easy to validate your output. It works well with the logical side of your brain. Learning CSS is a lot like learning English. There's the basic grammar, but also tons of edge cases, dialects, and straight up absurd rules (Buffalo buffalo…

Everything you say rings true ca 2000 to 2012. Today, CSS and the rendering engines have both improved and converged to such a degree, I’m not sure it’s fair to still criticize them quite so harshly.

Of course the cutting edge will temporarily see one rendering engine a few months behind another. But that’s unavoidable unless you prefer a monoculture, which is liable to move slower than slowest of today’s major rendering engines.

It’s perfectly normal today to create CSS (and JS) in one browser and find it working flawlessly in another. 10 years ago, you would have called everyone over to your screen to have them witness this miracle.

Re: Ask HN: Is it just me, or is CSS too damn hard?

#205

Post by a13n »

> I can't say "hey, CSS, this is the parent div, and all child divs must obey its size". I can't do anything basic on CSS without turning for help.

Use Flexbox. It makes layout so much more straightforward.

This is an awesome resource for learning Flexbox that you can use as a reference until you don't need to anymore: https://css-tricks.com/snippets/css/a-guide-to-flexbox/

> I have no idea which colors "go" with which ones, and pretty much all fonts look like the same for me.

This isn't about learning CSS, this is about learning design, which is a completely different game.

Re: Ask HN: Is it just me, or is CSS too damn hard?

#206

Post by jvvw »

The fundamental problem, I think, is that alignment is a key concept in design which isn't reflected well in CSS. The concepts of normal flow and the box model are almost at odds with wanting to align lots of different parts of a page. CSS Grid and Flexbox do help with this certainly but don't completely solve the problem.

Even disregarding mobile and tablets, I think it's also sometimes surprisingly quite hard sometimes to specify how fundamentally you want a page to look in differently-sized browsers - how things like spacing and guttering and so on should work particularly when your content is dynamic.

Plus, there is the fact that it is hard to shield parts of your page from being inadvertently affected by CSS that you don't want to affect it. Again, there are ways to minimise this, but if you're not the only person working on your codebase, good luck!

And if you want to learn a bit about design, The Non-Designer's Design Book by Robin Williams is a good starting point. It is a quick and engaging read and will certainly make you start to appreciate things like the differences between fonts.

Re: Ask HN: Is it just me, or is CSS too damn hard?

#207

Post by NeedMoreTea »

jacobush wrote: post #198
NeedMoreTea wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh wow. I'd always just assumed it was a US idiom along the lines of yada yada or something. Buffalo buffalo... doesn't work in British English as it is only a noun. Nearest English silliness I can remember hearing is: police police police police.

Don't tell me you can't verb a noun in English English? "police police police police" - please...

Of course nouns have been made verbs in English. You'll find no British English dictionary listing where buffalo is, unless noting US usage, where it is both.

Police police police police is grammatically correct, but of little meaning : (the) police police(v) police (of) police (ie overseers of the police).

Re: Ask HN: Is it just me, or is CSS too damn hard?

#208

Post by LandR »

notjustanymike wrote: post #16

I work as a frontend architect and UX lead (yes, it's tiring), and you're encountering a common problem. Javascript is logical (sort of...), and a lot like learning math. It's fairly easy to validate your output. It works well with the logical side of your brain. Learning CSS is a lot like learning English. There's the basic grammar, but also tons of edge cases, dialects, and straight up absurd rules (Buffalo buffalo…

> Javascript is logical (sort of...), and a lot like learning math. It's fairly easy to validate your output. It works well with the logical side of your brain.

No, it really isn't.

Some languages are, JS definitely isn't. It's mostly illogical / broken / mental.

Re: Ask HN: Is it just me, or is CSS too damn hard?

#209

Post by yuchi »

notjustanymike wrote: post #16

I work as a frontend architect and UX lead (yes, it's tiring), and you're encountering a common problem. Javascript is logical (sort of...), and a lot like learning math. It's fairly easy to validate your output. It works well with the logical side of your brain. Learning CSS is a lot like learning English. There's the basic grammar, but also tons of edge cases, dialects, and straight up absurd rules (Buffalo buffalo…

I’m in the same exact role, leading both UX and FE engs. It’s exhausting.
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