Speaking as someone who has no problem with either CSS, SQL, C++/java/perl/python/assembly or Jan Tschichold, the problem with CSS doesn't seem art-like, but ra

Speaking as someone who has no problem with either CSS, SQL, C++/java/perl/python/assembly or Jan Tschichold, the problem with CSS doesn't seem art-like, but rather SQL-like. People expect CSS/SQL to be like those other languages that also have indentation and (){}[], but they are based on other concepts. C++ and Python may be different from each other, but they're both imperative block-structured languages with a strong emphasis on time and happens-before. SQL is set logic expressed as ABNF. If you want to write good SQL you have to let go of assignments that happen-before other assignments. Instead there are sets, unions and other concepts from logic. Debugging javascript is a little different from debugging C++. Debugging SQL is fundamentally different. CSS is like that. It's Jan Tschichold's design rules expressed using ABNF and has nothing to do with von Neumann machines. You might achieve Zen by reading one of Tschichold's books, and ignoring all of the syntax and tricks and howtos for a while.