14 ms·

Wholeheartedly disagree. Advancements to CSS have made front-end way more reasonably than they were in the 90s. Stuff that took weeks to figure out with tables

Wholeheartedly disagree. Advancements to CSS have made front-end way more reasonably than they were in the 90s. Stuff that took weeks to figure out with tables can now be done so quickly with `display: flex` and the whole grid system. It's beautiful. If we had `display: flex back` in 1998 I probably wouldn't have stuck with FE rather than dive into the backend.

mablopoule 3y ago
Agree. I did CSS before flexbox was available, and I have no ideas how I did before. There is tons of very good stuff coming our way in CSS (such as container queries), better ergonomics for Javascript, excellent tooling in the browser, stuff to be optimistic for, not just all this madness about the framework du jour.
wongarsu 3y ago
Web dev (as in: HTML and CSS) improved a lot in the last 20-30 years. But if I had to quickly make a fully functioning interface and had the choice between today's web and 2002's Delphi 7 I'd choose Delphi 7 in a heartbeat. And just look at what non-technial people were able to do with Macromedia Flash in the early 2000s. You need experienced frontend devs to recreate what designers did as a hobby back then. Of course those solutions don't solve the transition between desktop and mobile layout (since that wasn't a thing back then), but more some modern frameworks solve that well (like whatever MS calls UWP right now) without forcing everyone to reinvent a way to do infinite scrolling without running out of memory
- phist_mcgee 3y ago
  This reads as if written by someone with rose tinted glasses.
  - text0404 3y ago
    +1. would love to see an example of something created in Flash by a single designer that takes a team of frontend devs to create today. fyi folks, Flash is also based on ECMAScript! just because the mid-90s tooling built by Macromedia triggers your nostalgia doesn't mean it was better!
freeopinion 3y ago
I think this is what they meant by rediscovering or reinventing new things over and over. Yes, display:flex is newer than XUL and different in some ways. But 20 years on it seems disappointing that display:flex is perceived as such an advancement by those who have forgotten or never knew the past.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
nvm0n2 3y ago
If he is comparing things to 1990 then that means he's using "frontend" to included non-web UI tech as well, in which case flex vs tables isn't really the main point of comparison.
jinushaun 3y ago
Nah. Tables were easy. All the craziness came with people using <div> as <table>. That was only recently fixed by flex box.
jtwebman 3y ago
It was all backend in 1998.
- baq 3y ago
  PHP running as lambda functions^W^WCGI. Those were the times.
ttfkam 3y ago
What's wrong with this? float: left; Oh wait… that was 2002 at least. "Tables ought to be enough for everyone." There we go! Nailed 1998!
- tacker2000 3y ago
  Dont forget clear:both; !
- ttfkam 3y ago
  Wow, I guess I really needed the sarcasm tag there. It appears some folks didn't get that this wasn't aspirational.
prmph 3y ago
What? A few days ago I gave up trying to write a moderately complex component based on flex-grid. The number of options, and all the quirks of them, was overwhelming, and in the end I couldn't even get the basic behavior I wanted. Maybe i will try again some other. I think display: flex is very useful, display:grid is too complicated with the way they designed it.

mablopoule 3y ago

Agree. I did CSS before flexbox was available, and I have no ideas how I did before. There is tons of very good stuff coming our way in CSS (such as container queries), better ergonomics for Javascript, excellent tooling in the browser, stuff to be optimistic for, not just all this madness about the framework du jour.

wongarsu 3y ago

Web dev (as in: HTML and CSS) improved a lot in the last 20-30 years. But if I had to quickly make a fully functioning interface and had the choice between today's web and 2002's Delphi 7 I'd choose Delphi 7 in a heartbeat. And just look at what non-technial people were able to do with Macromedia Flash in the early 2000s. You need experienced frontend devs to recreate what designers did as a hobby back then. Of course those solutions don't solve the transition between desktop and mobile layout (since that wasn't a thing back then), but more some modern frameworks solve that well (like whatever MS calls UWP right now) without forcing everyone to reinvent a way to do infinite scrolling without running out of memory

phist_mcgee 3y ago
This reads as if written by someone with rose tinted glasses.
- text0404 3y ago
  +1. would love to see an example of something created in Flash by a single designer that takes a team of frontend devs to create today. fyi folks, Flash is also based on ECMAScript! just because the mid-90s tooling built by Macromedia triggers your nostalgia doesn't mean it was better!

freeopinion 3y ago

I think this is what they meant by rediscovering or reinventing new things over and over. Yes, display:flex is newer than XUL and different in some ways. But 20 years on it seems disappointing that display:flex is perceived as such an advancement by those who have forgotten or never knew the past.

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

nvm0n2 3y ago

If he is comparing things to 1990 then that means he's using "frontend" to included non-web UI tech as well, in which case flex vs tables isn't really the main point of comparison.

jinushaun 3y ago

Nah. Tables were easy. All the craziness came with people using <div> as <table>. That was only recently fixed by flex box.

jtwebman 3y ago

It was all backend in 1998.

baq 3y ago
PHP running as lambda functions^W^WCGI. Those were the times.

ttfkam 3y ago

What's wrong with this? float: left; Oh wait… that was 2002 at least. "Tables ought to be enough for everyone." There we go! Nailed 1998!

tacker2000 3y ago
Dont forget clear:both; !
ttfkam 3y ago
Wow, I guess I really needed the sarcasm tag there. It appears some folks didn't get that this wasn't aspirational.

prmph 3y ago

What? A few days ago I gave up trying to write a moderately complex component based on flex-grid. The number of options, and all the quirks of them, was overwhelming, and in the end I couldn't even get the basic behavior I wanted. Maybe i will try again some other. I think display: flex is very useful, display:grid is too complicated with the way they designed it.