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We're talking about needless complication as opposed to essential complexity. We're talking about goddammit-I-just-want-x-next-to-y-no-matter-what-is-specified-

by mkn 16y ago

We're talking about needless complication as opposed to essential complexity. We're talking about goddammit-I-just-want-x-next-to-y-no-matter-what-is-specified-ten-levels-up-the-dom-tree! The essential reason that front-end development "should" be easier than back-end development is that back-end development is fundamentally algorithmic in nature and requires languages powerful enough to solve any solvable problem in computer science, while front-end development--and we really mean layout here--solves the limited problem of placement, layering, and coloring, and only requires a commensurate level of syntactic power for its implementation. I guess my point is that the front-end, or at least the layout portion of the front-end that CSS purports to solve, is so obviously so much less complicated than the back-end that you shouldn't have to point that out in order to deflect the accusation that it's just a naive expectation. I realize it was probably tongue-in-cheek, but if anyone defends the complexity of CSS by equating it to a jobs program for web dorks, they've just ceded the point that CSS is improperly designed and needlessly complex.

lwhi 16y ago
My point was - if creating websites is so easy, why would we need any web-developers? In the best-of-all worlds, it would be straightforward - but in the real world there are lots of things to consider. We need specialists. You might only use CSS for layout, but that doesn't mean layout defines the full-extent of its functionality. When creating client-side user-interfaces, CSS is usually used in conjunction with other technologies. Front-end development often makes use of JS, and last time I checked that was a fully fledged programming language ;) CSS can provide a developer with a lot of flexibility - and the fact that you don't understand it is perhaps the main problem. I think people assume they don't need to actually learn CSS - and get annoyed when they realise their brain wasn't preloaded with the required knowledge :)

by mkn 16y ago

lwhi 16y ago

My point was - if creating websites is so easy, why would we need any web-developers? In the best-of-all worlds, it would be straightforward - but in the real world there are lots of things to consider. We need specialists. You might only use CSS for layout, but that doesn't mean layout defines the full-extent of its functionality. When creating client-side user-interfaces, CSS is usually used in conjunction with other technologies. Front-end development often makes use of JS, and last time I checked that was a fully fledged programming language ;) CSS can provide a developer with a lot of flexibility - and the fact that you don't understand it is perhaps the main problem. I think people assume they don't need to actually learn CSS - and get annoyed when they realise their brain wasn't preloaded with the required knowledge :)