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I remember the dumpster-fire days too. The thing that I can't understand is, why did it take SO LONG to get useable, proper, and intuitive CSS-based layout on

I remember the dumpster-fire days too. The thing that I can't understand is, why did it take SO LONG to get useable, proper, and intuitive CSS-based layout on web-pages? I mean, we've had all kinds of rock-solid mechanisms for layout in desktop applications since the dawn of GUI's in the NINETEEN EIGHTIES. Meanwhile, in CSS, people had resort to HTML tables up until sometime in the early naughts, when AWFUL, counterintuitive float-based hacks were part of the "Web 2.0" buzz. For Christ's sake, just getting fixed side-bars and a width-adaptive central area was called "The Holy Grail" by CSS experts. Isn't that the one of the most fundamental layouts GUI's-- AKA "The Docpanel"? It wasn't possible to get really nice layout without crazy hacks until flexbox in 2010-ish? Finally, a few years after flexbox, CSS grid comes out, and oopsie, we weren't supposed to use flexbox for overall layout anyway. Now it's CSS-grid for 2D (page layout), Flexbox for 1D (component layout), and floats for what they were originally intended for (putting pictures into a block of text and have the text flow around the pictures). To be fair, I actually like CSS now. It seems like it's really reached a point where you don't have to cling tightly to somebody's zany overcomplicated framework and can pretty much execute your will without frenetic trial and error. So NOW it's a success, but it's distressing that I feel CSS deserves nothing more than a sarcastic SLOW CLAP?

dmitriid 5y ago
> The thing that I can't understand is, why did it take SO LONG to get useable, proper, and intuitive CSS-based layout on web-pages? Many reasons: - HTML and CSS are not designed for anything complex. HTML and CSS at their core are only meant to display a static page of text and some images in a single rendering pass on a computer from 1990s. - Many decisions in CSS (especially early CSS) are one-off solutions that might not even have correct specifications compared to how people usually use it Float is really a one-off solution for a very specific subset of layout. The standard box model famously has a default that no one in real world uses, and that IE actually got right. There are more: https://pavpanchekha.com/blog/css-problems.html https://pavpanchekha.com/blog/css-problems.html and https://www.impressivewebs.com/css-the-bad-parts/ https://www.impressivewebs.com/css-the-bad-parts/ - Any solution has to be aware of any previous solution and mistake Let's say, you introduce flex. How will it work with floats? What about display:inline or display:inline-block? Tables? Inside tables? Let's say you introduce grid. All the question above plus all the questions on how it will behave with flex. Let's say you introduce... - Standards are mostly driven by browser implementors, who are not known for any/much of web work. Additionally, solutions have to be "fully complete including edge cases that maybe one person in the world cares about". Cant' find the link for that, sorry, you'd have to take me at my word :) - All that still has to work reasonably fast for some definition of fast, including all the weird interactions between mistakes and other workarounds of past, present, and future For example, Cassowary constraint solving algorithm for layouts was proposed in 1999, but was rejected because it was deemed too costly to process.
- crispyambulance 5y ago
  > HTML and CSS are not designed for anything complex. Yeah, I believe you, I can see how that would have been the thinking back in the 90's. But there started to be significant web applications in the early 2000's. It's all water under the bridge now, but what if there had been more "throwing away" (deprecation) of the bad stuff and less mitigation with the whims of browser implementors? I feel like we would be in a better position today. What if the W3C had taken a more standards-based approach with hard PASS/FAIL requirements on styling/layout/semantics rather than "recommendations" that browser implementors have always taken as optional and subject to interpretation?
  - dmitriid 5y ago
    > But there started to be significant web applications in the early 2000's. And then you had IE6 and stagnation on the web :) > It's all water under the bridge now, but what if there had been more "throwing away" (deprecation) of the bad stuff and less mitigation with the whims of browser implementors? I feel like we would be in a better position today. You could view Canvas, WebGL, WebGPU and WebASM as going in that direction. > What if the W3C had taken a more standards-based approach with hard PASS/FAIL requirements W3C has no power over browsers, and is made up of browser implementors (among other people).
    - atatatat 5y ago
      Now we're doing "WebAssembly", "WASM", and "WebASM"?!

dmitriid 5y ago

> The thing that I can't understand is, why did it take SO LONG to get useable, proper, and intuitive CSS-based layout on web-pages? Many reasons: - HTML and CSS are not designed for anything complex. HTML and CSS at their core are only meant to display a static page of text and some images in a single rendering pass on a computer from 1990s. - Many decisions in CSS (especially early CSS) are one-off solutions that might not even have correct specifications compared to how people usually use it Float is really a one-off solution for a very specific subset of layout. The standard box model famously has a default that no one in real world uses, and that IE actually got right. There are more: https://pavpanchekha.com/blog/css-problems.html https://pavpanchekha.com/blog/css-problems.html and https://www.impressivewebs.com/css-the-bad-parts/ https://www.impressivewebs.com/css-the-bad-parts/ - Any solution has to be aware of any previous solution and mistake Let's say, you introduce flex. How will it work with floats? What about display:inline or display:inline-block? Tables? Inside tables? Let's say you introduce grid. All the question above plus all the questions on how it will behave with flex. Let's say you introduce... - Standards are mostly driven by browser implementors, who are not known for any/much of web work. Additionally, solutions have to be "fully complete including edge cases that maybe one person in the world cares about". Cant' find the link for that, sorry, you'd have to take me at my word :) - All that still has to work reasonably fast for some definition of fast, including all the weird interactions between mistakes and other workarounds of past, present, and future For example, Cassowary constraint solving algorithm for layouts was proposed in 1999, but was rejected because it was deemed too costly to process.

crispyambulance 5y ago
> HTML and CSS are not designed for anything complex. Yeah, I believe you, I can see how that would have been the thinking back in the 90's. But there started to be significant web applications in the early 2000's. It's all water under the bridge now, but what if there had been more "throwing away" (deprecation) of the bad stuff and less mitigation with the whims of browser implementors? I feel like we would be in a better position today. What if the W3C had taken a more standards-based approach with hard PASS/FAIL requirements on styling/layout/semantics rather than "recommendations" that browser implementors have always taken as optional and subject to interpretation?
- dmitriid 5y ago
  > But there started to be significant web applications in the early 2000's. And then you had IE6 and stagnation on the web :) > It's all water under the bridge now, but what if there had been more "throwing away" (deprecation) of the bad stuff and less mitigation with the whims of browser implementors? I feel like we would be in a better position today. You could view Canvas, WebGL, WebGPU and WebASM as going in that direction. > What if the W3C had taken a more standards-based approach with hard PASS/FAIL requirements W3C has no power over browsers, and is made up of browser implementors (among other people).
  - atatatat 5y ago
    Now we're doing "WebAssembly", "WASM", and "WebASM"?!