Good frontend work is HARD. It requires both design and engineering knowledge, and it’s very easy to write unmaintainable or inaccessible code. It also requires a high amount of backend work via BFFs, load balancing, hosting and serving, credential management, and more. The cherry on top is that it’s basically all async code.
To be clear, I’m talking about the types of
FEs used by thousands internationally, fully adherent to WCAG 2.2 (and above), and with rich interactivity. I’m not talking about someone’s hobby project with a couple dozen users at best.
Seeing backend elitists diminish its worth is tiring as all hell. To me, it indicates that the person is either new to the industry or looking for a sense of superiority because they don’t understand FE work. It’s meaningless and exhausting to read.
I feel like this article is completely missing my point.
I’ve done my share of programming websites but not for the past 2 decades. And now I’m completely lost at reading CSS. I can’t make sense of the code shown in the picture. And that’s always been my trouble with CSS: the tendency to unnecessarily over-complicate things while reinventing the wheel.
They have created a huge barrier for entry to the world of website programming and I think it’s a shame.
That’s an honest criticism that does not intend to devalue frontend. But there’s an overlap where “over-complicate” may imply that frontend (tools) should be uncomplicated.
Having only done a few frontend projects in recent years, I see obvious value to new, more powerful CSS selectors and even things like Tailwind. I can’t read Tailwind yet, but making intuitive user interfaces that work well on all kinds of devices for all kinds of people (screen readers?) is difficult and should not be expected to be simple, IMO. But this is a matter of opinion.
The ones most qualified to deal with that issue are, obviously, experienced frontend devs and they build these things.
I see you are a thin skinned idiot that can’t understand your own fucking link
I find what most of those people actually mean is: HTML and CSS aren’t scripting languages. Which: a) of course they aren’t; and b) is not really the point at all.
my point is that css is meant to determine appearance and logic should be handled elsewhere.
I see you too are a backend enjoyer who is tired of modern frontend development. I highly recommend reading this:
https://joshcollinsworth.com/blog/devaluing-frontend
Thanks for posting this.
Good frontend work is HARD. It requires both design and engineering knowledge, and it’s very easy to write unmaintainable or inaccessible code. It also requires a high amount of backend work via BFFs, load balancing, hosting and serving, credential management, and more. The cherry on top is that it’s basically all async code.
To be clear, I’m talking about the types of FEs used by thousands internationally, fully adherent to WCAG 2.2 (and above), and with rich interactivity. I’m not talking about someone’s hobby project with a couple dozen users at best.
Seeing backend elitists diminish its worth is tiring as all hell. To me, it indicates that the person is either new to the industry or looking for a sense of superiority because they don’t understand FE work. It’s meaningless and exhausting to read.
Tldr: I agree
I feel like this article is completely missing my point. I’ve done my share of programming websites but not for the past 2 decades. And now I’m completely lost at reading CSS. I can’t make sense of the code shown in the picture. And that’s always been my trouble with CSS: the tendency to unnecessarily over-complicate things while reinventing the wheel. They have created a huge barrier for entry to the world of website programming and I think it’s a shame.
That’s an honest criticism that does not intend to devalue frontend. But there’s an overlap where “over-complicate” may imply that frontend (tools) should be uncomplicated.
Having only done a few frontend projects in recent years, I see obvious value to new, more powerful CSS selectors and even things like Tailwind. I can’t read Tailwind yet, but making intuitive user interfaces that work well on all kinds of devices for all kinds of people (screen readers?) is difficult and should not be expected to be simple, IMO. But this is a matter of opinion.
The ones most qualified to deal with that issue are, obviously, experienced frontend devs and they build these things.
I see you are a thin skinned idiot that can’t understand your own fucking link
my point is that css is meant to determine appearance and logic should be handled elsewhere.
CSS has always combined the styling and the logic for the styling. CSS selectors implement logic to determine where to apply styles