Šime VidasIsn’t it weird that CSS is a critical part of all websites, and yet “CSS expert” does not seem to be a particularly valued profession?
Amanda Carson@simevidas Yeah, kind of like HTML expert.
Literal Cosmo Catalano@arush @simevidas …until an accessibility lawsuit arrives
Dym Sohin@simevidas bc people can live without css experts: free templates or even good defaults. most information is just text anyways
Jalada@simevidas I find most devs dislike CSS, and also don’t approach it how they approach other tools. I wonder if that’s because we tend not to prioritise formally teaching it like we do, say, JavaScript.
ajkandy@jalada @simevidas HTML and CSS isn’t taught *at all* in most CS courses. I’ve worked at places where they exclusively hired CS grads who had mostly never learned front-end, using Hot New Frameworks™ to replace their old deprecated frameworks over and over again. (In reality: they now have 4 deprecated frameworks in use)
The cascade isn’t as hard as they think it is!
Solinus@ajkandy @jalada @simevidas I signed up for CS 3 only because the description said that it had HTML and CSS. If they don't offer that anymore (outdated description or something else), i am going to question my existence.
@Solinus @jalada @simevidas ah! Yeah they probably would cover it. It’s university level computer science that doesn’t teach it - that’s why people go to web design community college classes, bootcamps or self-learn.
Jens Oliver Meiert@simevidas, worth defining “expert” (given the massiveness of #CSS) and looking into who exactly doesn’t value expertise with CSS (some do, fortunately)
@j9t I don’t think it needs a special definition. Wikipedia’s definition seems fine:
> An expert is somebody who has a broad and deep understanding and competence in terms of knowledge, skill and experience through practice and education in a particular field.
@simevidas, sure, then the world is explained
Thomas Michael Semmler@simevidas I have very pessimistic hypothesis' about for why that is. This describes it really well: https://thoughtbot.com/blog/tailwind-and-the-femininity-of-css
Keith Duke@nachtfunke @simevidas Nice article, thanks for sharing that.
ｔｏ⟁ｓｔ⟁ｌ@nachtfunke @simevidas I've had similar thoughts. I’m usually the resident “CSS expert” at places I work and many rely so heavily on frameworks & put no interest into learning the language (both the good & bad parts) with utter contempt and dismissal. I definitely feel some imposter syndrome about it as I don’t understand the ‘real’ languages as well as coworkers, but I can usually solve CSS problems from them in minutes.
Asbjørn Ulsberg@toastal @nachtfunke @simevidas Thanks for sharing, that was an excellent read that I agree with 100%. Brogrammer culture is toxic in every layer of our field and needs to be eradicated.
@nachtfunke There might actually be a link between CSS and femininity. My gender test result was “casually feminine”, and I find CSS much more interesting than JavaScript.
Carl Poppa 🛸@nachtfunke @simevidas thanks for sharing this Thomas! great article
Goretta Critter of the Night@simevidas also it's NOT EASY to work with. People who can easily manipulate floats are literal wizards.
@Goretta_Synn For that reason, the CSS experts who know how to work with these things should be more valued.
@simevidas 100% agreed.
R@simevidas Yes it is very weird, but i think it has been like that from day one. (15 years in the industry for me, so the things i have seen!), never considered a 'real programming' language. So let the real programmers do their important work, and then those front-end developers can finger paint their CSS on top of it.
Nicolas H.@simevidas in most case, yes, and that's really an issue. As good as people could be in JS/apps/etc., being good at CSS is also important.
At Proton, I set up a team called UXE (UX Engineering) where we have 3 specialised people in CSS (but not only : HTML, etc.). And TBH, we don't have a lot of free time :D
mray@simevidas CSS is just the sugar coating of the *actual* content. Worthless. Meaningless. It is superficial and nobody cares… well. Until the day it stops working as intended and you realize how it is the thin layer between your retina and the content behind the screen, potentially screwing everything up. ^_^
It probably is a bit of a goal-keeper-effect: you never value it enough until after it is too late :P
Simeon Nedkov@simevidas I'd say that while CSS is critical it is not sufficient to build stuff on the web.
An outfit/company with limited resources is therefore more likely to hire a frontend/fullstack dev who's OK with CSS instead of a dedicated CSS _and_ a frontend dev.
Put differently: I wish I _could_ afford to delegate CSS stuff to someone who's really, really good at it.
Sadly, I can't and am therefore learning/doing the minimal amount of CSS to get my app off the ground.
yugaego 🌍@simevidas It used to be, at least during the era of https://www.csszengarden.com and before the era of CSS frameworks. So that's probably due to an overall "automate" (in a meaning making faster but with a loss of personal touch / uniqueness / artsy feel) everything tendency. So that's probably more of a "money" question, I think.
Some people still concentrate on the topic. Like https://moderncss.dev and --up until 2022 as I see now-- https://css-tricks.com/author/chriscoyier
@reiver ⊼ (Charles) 
A front-end developer used to be someone who knew HTML & CSS and very likely was NOT a programmer
Later, programmers took over the front-end development — front-end development became about JavaScript and later TypeScript
The previous non-programmer front-end developers either got pushed out of the industry, or became UX specialists
The new programmer front-end developers tended to not have as deep knowledge of HTML, CSS, semantics, etc, as the non-programmer front-end developers
Evan Minto@simevidas It's considered "easy" and folded into other jobs as a result. If you have someone who can at least get some barely functional CSS that's enough for a lot of teams.
Riley S. Faelan@simevidas: Isn't it weird that food is a critical part of staying alive, and yet "food-making expert" does not seem to be a particularly valued profession?
@riley I don’t think that’s a good analogy. Food prepared by a non-expert is still good.
@simevidas: Except for the risks of cholera and broken glass. And one not expert at line cooking might take an awfully long time to get the food burnt.