I think maybe HTML-as-content is declarative, but HTML-as-layout is mostly imperative. I would expect a constraint-solving engine in any declarative layout syst

I think maybe HTML-as-content is declarative, but HTML-as-layout is mostly imperative. I would expect a constraint-solving engine in any declarative layout system. Tables have some minor constraint solving capabilities... So of course we do our best to never use them for layout! Flexbox was definitely a step in the right direction. I've talked before about an idea to split layout into a new technology, freeing HTML and CSS to only consider content and presentation: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13536585 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13536585