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My First CSS
21–30 of 107 posts
Re: My First CSS
#22Based on the way the article is written, I assume that software engineering was not new to the author when he first started writing CSS. It seems strange to me to write an article like this because it's just an indication that the author chose to dive in without understanding the fundamentals first. I'm honestly just trying to understand how articles like this get promoted to the front page of Hacker News more and mo…
The question then comes, where would one go to learn the fundamentals-and what are they now? Being someone who was ahead of the game in css 15 years ago, but not having touched it since - where would one go to understand the new fundamentals and options available?
I would go for https://every-layout.dev/
These are actual practical usable fundamentals.
Complement that with http://inclusive-components.design/
Re: My First CSS
#23CSS is a lot like the underground infrastructure of NYC. Most of it was happenstance, a lot of it is undocumented or no longer remembered, you ignore the advice of authorities at your own peril, and no matter what you're trying to do it's going to involve a lot of digging.
We used to loved CSS Quirks Mode (or Strict Mode).
Re: My First CSS
#24For me those rules are not the fundamentals. There's more you need to know to actually get CSS to work (and I still usually have to guess and google and try random things to get it to work because my knowledge is lacking)
In particular trying to get content of some flexbox to fill the space provided by the flexbox itself, especially in a single non-scrolling app like page where you're trying to constrain everything to fitting in the window. Like the rule that you have to set min-width to 0 or something to get the desired behavior.
https://makandracards.com/makandra/66994-css-flex-and-min-wi...
That's not the only gotcha
I suppose you could argue that's not fundamental but to me, basic layout that most standard native UI toolkits would provide is an essential feature and yet to achieve it in CSS requires knowing a few obscure tricks
I wish someone would write some other UI language that would translate into CSS so I could write
full window frame
left side
right side
toolbar
content
To put it another way, imagine you want to repo the Keynote UI or Numbers UI in a webpage. Those are basic app UIs and yet they just slightly less than straight forward in CSS. I'm not saying they are hard, only that most people will have to goole some non-intuitive tricks to get things to work which is a different experience than trying to do them in a native UI kit where it's more likely fairly clear how to achieve it.
Re: My First CSS
#25I definitely find `box-sizing: border-box` fits my mental model much better.
I rarely find a need to think about `positioning` though and I think the article doesn't give enough credit for `display: flex` and `display: grid`. I tend to reach for `display: flex` as a default and find it much more intuitive. Whether it's easier for a beginner is a different question though.
Re: My First CSS
#26Based on the way the article is written, I assume that software engineering was not new to the author when he first started writing CSS. It seems strange to me to write an article like this because it's just an indication that the author chose to dive in without understanding the fundamentals first. I'm honestly just trying to understand how articles like this get promoted to the front page of Hacker News more and mo…
> it's just an indication that the author chose to dive in without understanding the fundamentals first You'd be surprised how many otherwise-competent engineers don't take CSS seriously enough to seek out the fundamentals, and instead spend their days avoiding it as much as possible and cursing it when they can't
I totally avoid CSS at work because it’s just an insane whack-a-mole spaghetti based upon our own SASS framework written by a few designers that had to learn CSS without any mentoring (since they are in their own « design » team), and don’t understand the consequences of what they do.
So yes, I totally spend my days avoiding it. Not because I hate CSS (I love it in some way, and I miss writing elegant stylesheets) but because CSS is a delicate tool that is hard to be maintained by more than a few people.
Re: My First CSS
#27For me those rules are not the fundamentals. There's more you need to know to actually get CSS to work (and I still usually have to guess and google and try random things to get it to work because my knowledge is lacking) In particular trying to get content of some flexbox to fill the space provided by the flexbox itself, especially in a single non-scrolling app like page where you're trying to constrain everything t…
Have a look at autolayout.js! Here’s a link to a previous discussion on this site: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21997622
Re: My First CSS
#28Based on the way the article is written, I assume that software engineering was not new to the author when he first started writing CSS. It seems strange to me to write an article like this because it's just an indication that the author chose to dive in without understanding the fundamentals first. I'm honestly just trying to understand how articles like this get promoted to the front page of Hacker News more and mo…
The question then comes, where would one go to learn the fundamentals-and what are they now? Being someone who was ahead of the game in css 15 years ago, but not having touched it since - where would one go to understand the new fundamentals and options available?
Once upon a time Eric A Meyer's CSS: The Definitive Guide was the book to own.
These days, as mentioned in the OP, MDN is the best point of call for checking syntax or learning how to implement something new the right way.
Re: My First CSS
#29This is a great list! For someone starting out with modern CSS I’d add: a working knowledge of Flexbox, and media queries to enable responsive design.
Re: My First CSS
#30For me those rules are not the fundamentals. There's more you need to know to actually get CSS to work (and I still usually have to guess and google and try random things to get it to work because my knowledge is lacking) In particular trying to get content of some flexbox to fill the space provided by the flexbox itself, especially in a single non-scrolling app like page where you're trying to constrain everything t…
I think there is a very easy fix to most HTML/CSS problems when building GUI on the web - use HTML5 canvas.
HTML is not a good match for GUI and CSS is not a good match for...anything.
HTML5 canvas brings you to where Windows/X was 25 years ago so instead of trying to build GUI using TUI, just use the damn GUI already.
Sure, the whole lot of tooling is missing but some copy/paste/fix from either Windows or X should produce better result than S*T ton of HTML/CSS/JS that is currently there attempting (and failing) to emulate Windows/X GUI.