I started designing websites from around the age of 12. That would have been the early 2000s, so while it wasn't the very early days of the web it was still a n

I started designing websites from around the age of 12. That would have been the early 2000s, so while it wasn't the very early days of the web it was still a nightmare to build anything that looked good and would work cross-browser. The main difficulty back then wasn't the design, but all the random tricks and hacks you'd have to learn before you could do anything that looked impressive and worked reliably. And I don't think I'm exaggerating when I say it took years to get good at. But since I had just been doing this for fun since I was a kid I didn't really appreciate how difficult it was until I got to university and found myself trying to explain things to people who had never used CSS and HTML before. Being a good web developer in the 2000s basically meant becoming an encyclopedia of random CSS and browser bugs. Half the time there was no logic in what you did, just pure brute force memorisation of cross-browser weirdness, CSS compatibility tables and JS hacks. Things are better now, but I do miss those times. The simplest things were challenging back then.