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You did not address the author's point, however - that to do CSS, you now also need to know JS. That's a significant learning curve for people whose specialism

You did not address the author's point, however - that to do CSS, you now also need to know JS. That's a significant learning curve for people whose specialism is design, not coding. I noticed this myself when we adopted React and I told my cofounder (a designer by education) that he could "just tweak the embedded HTML in there as he saw fit" (i.e. the JSX). I think I said something like "just scroll past all the code you don't understand until you reach something that looks like HTML". In practice I don't think he ever touched it - not because he's an idiot or easily intimidated, but simply because editing the HTML wasn't the most productive way forward for him anymore. Instead, he'd edit it live in devtools, make a screenshot and copy out the edited HTML+CSS sources and tossed it over to me. I don't think he was wrong about doing it that way. I don't think you're wrong either, by the way - I don't think we made the wrong decision when we started writing our HTML (and later, also, our CSS) in JS. But, depending on your team composition, there's real world consequences to doing so that you're going to want to take into account.

lewisflude 8y ago
That's a good point. Developer/designer productivity being lost in favour of some other wins isn't always the best tradeoff for every team, and the fact that it's becoming normalised does put some developers/designers in an awkward position. It is a good point, and it's something I think I'm going to have a think about. I think it's really important that designers aren't put off building front-ends because it's just gotten too complex.
trh88 8y ago
> to do CSS, you now also need to know JS Since when? You don't need to know JS to write CSS. You just don't. You make an architectural decision, based on what you want to create, to use css-in-js. But that's a decision that you make. You can 'do' CSS without anything but... CSS!
- icebraining 8y ago
  Yes, working on a personal project, I can make those decisions. In a team, I often can't; I have to work on convincing others. Posts like these are part of that process.
- skrebbel 8y ago
  That's exactly what I wrote, right?
beefalo 8y ago
How common is it to have designers that are actually writing css and html? Of the dozen designers I have worked with, every one of them was using a tool like Invision or Sketch and as far as I know, have no html/css knowledge.

lewisflude 8y ago

That's a good point. Developer/designer productivity being lost in favour of some other wins isn't always the best tradeoff for every team, and the fact that it's becoming normalised does put some developers/designers in an awkward position. It is a good point, and it's something I think I'm going to have a think about. I think it's really important that designers aren't put off building front-ends because it's just gotten too complex.

trh88 8y ago

> to do CSS, you now also need to know JS Since when? You don't need to know JS to write CSS. You just don't. You make an architectural decision, based on what you want to create, to use css-in-js. But that's a decision that you make. You can 'do' CSS without anything but... CSS!

icebraining 8y ago
Yes, working on a personal project, I can make those decisions. In a team, I often can't; I have to work on convincing others. Posts like these are part of that process.
skrebbel 8y ago
That's exactly what I wrote, right?

beefalo 8y ago

How common is it to have designers that are actually writing css and html? Of the dozen designers I have worked with, every one of them was using a tool like Invision or Sketch and as far as I know, have no html/css knowledge.