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Uli Troyo
Uli Troyo

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Why Everyone Is Fighting About CSS/UX and JS

TL;DR: There isn’t one. There’s no short way to say any of this, yet one of the reasons you keep fighting is because you misunderstand what the fight is about. Read the damn article. Please and thank you.

I hate intros. Let’s just dive in and I’ll fill you in where pertinent.

The Great Divide

Chris Coiyer’s essay "The Great Divide" broke the frontend dev community, inviting no small amount of snarkiness and drama on Twitter and elsewhere. In case you haven’t read the piece (and you should), it revolves around an observed division between frontend developers who use primarily JavaScript-related technologies to do their job, and frontend developers for whom JavaScript is only one of the many technologies they employ to do their more UX-centric job. The thing that everyone seems to be missing is that this is not a prescriptive view of how frontend-land should work, but rather, a descriptive view derived from real-life interviews Chris and his buddy Dave Rupert have conducted on their podcast ShopTalk Show (dot com).

In other words, the split is real. Chris and Dave are merely putting it into words.

Chris concludes in “The Great Divide” that this rift in focus is happening because frontend-land has basically ballooned away from the old context where frontend development was comprised of merely styling server-rendered components. He notes that many frontend developers are using JavaScript in a way more closely reminiscent of usual MVC-style backend programming, while others are focusing on using a more rounded set of tools, and primarily CSS, to make the frontend experience better and more accessible, and thus, if we’re to helpfully describe the jobs frontend developers are being hired to do, we should be distinguishing between JS Engineers and UX Engineers.

Class Warfare

The discussion, though, immediately devolved into whether JS Engineers (I’ve gone ahead and accepted Chris’s proposed nomenclature) do more work than UX Engineers, and whether UX Engineers deserve to be paid the same as JS Engineers.

I should note: if you've seen the discussion online and the outline I'm presenting doesn't jibe with your version of the events, that's fine. The web is a big place, and it's entirely possible you and I have witnessed two sides of the same coin. I'm trying to contextualize what I've seen with this narrative I'm building; I hope that's OK with you.

Anyway, as a surprise to nobody in the industry, we have a recurring theme of derision and general snootiness toward other people’s tech, an attitude which developer Aurynn Shaw incisively terms “contempt culture”. In this case, we began to see this contempt target UX Engineers... and I’m certain a number of you reading this are now thinking “you mean designers, though, right? How is design also engineering?”

Because here's the thing: even when no offense is meant, a lot of people don’t think UX Engineers are a thing, or that they’re glorified web designers at best. I observed this same attitude in the discussions surrounding the ShopTalk interviews of people who were primarily doing design-centric work. I’m not going to nag you one way or the other about whether this is correct; I’m merely pointing out that this is an attitude that people hold.

I'm likewise going to point out that people who take part in this culture of contempt often don't mean harm with their dismissiveness (citation needed, sure, but it’s my writeup). People are not necessarily trying to be jerks when they dismiss Ruby for being slow, nor when they dismiss JavaScript for “having been written in ten days”, nor when they dismiss Java as tech for stuffy old farts, nor when they dismiss Elixir as a toy language, nor when they dismiss PHP for being PHP, nor when they dismiss web development as “not real programming”, nor when they dismiss UX Engineers as “not engineers”. Sometimes the snootiness is just abrasive opinion based on passive biased observation.

Not many are keen on defending this behavior, though, because to people specializing in the technologies being disdained, these opinions often constitute a direct attack. You can pin a huge asterisk on this point, but basically: turns out when a person feels other people are shitting on the thing that pays the bills, that person might (rightly or understandably, your choice) get defensive. And that’s precisely what we saw on Twitter.

Jen Simmons (W3C's Working Group, Mozilla, Layout Land) describes the animosity toward UX Engineers as “class warfare”, and shot a number of choice spicy tweets toward a particular lean of JS Engineers:

I’m not doing you the (dis)favor of including any of the shittier tweets thereafter flung in Jen's direction: it’s the web—use your imagination. On the more sensible side of things, though, this argument gets more nuanced. Dan Abramov (React, Redux, create-react-app) writes:

I'm obviously putting Dan in the JS Engineer camp because, you know, React. Then there are people who don't fully identify with either of our new frontend designations. For example, Kyle Simpson (You Don't Know JS, Frontend Masters) writes:

Among other opinions, though, you can see folks beginning to tire of the incessant barrage of negativity. Das Surma (Google, HTTP203) sums it up thusly (and I really wish I could say “Surma surmises” but it’s wrong diction):

Basic as HTML

By the time Surma makes this statement, though, we’ve lost all semblance of a common thread of discussion. It’s no longer about how frondend development is evolving, but about whether CSS and HTML are difficult as technologies, by way of defending people whose job might often go no further programming-wise (though in my case obviously not dismissing the wealth of education and experience required for UX Engineering).

This is where DHH, whose JavaScript framework Stimulus (and indeed his entire work on Rails) pivots on the idea that the web is becoming unnecessarily complex and we’re all better off focusing on making app development as straightforward as possible, gives us his unsurprisingly direct opinion that designing for the web ought to mean making HTML and CSS. Here's his tweet on the subject:

I’ll admit that I think the discussion did seem to have jumped the shark a bit around the time DHH said this (though in the name of defending UX Engineers, so I’m not faulting anyone).... I mean, isn’t the whole point of web technologies to be accessible? Shouldn’t we take pride on the fact that HTML and CSS are as easy as they are powerful?

Wait, what were we talking about?

Somewhere around this point, there seemed to be a shift in the atmosphere: a secondary argument began to emerge... and it is where I think everything became real convoluted, and it's where people are having trouble reconciling what the hell is even going on with this whole UX vs. JS thing. Because while one side was fighting about whether UX is as cool as JS or whatever, an adjacent and more interesting talk began to make its way forward...

From my personal vantage, it started with DHH, who goes on to make a second appearance in this story with an observation about the state of web technologies, this time in a post about how View Source is on the decline and how we shouldn’t let it die. Here's his tweet on that subject:

(Here Tom Dale throws a spicy one at DHH; I'm including these for no better reason than it's funny:)

Anyway, the idea that View Source is worth saving is pretty interesting, because I knew I couldn’t be the only one who thinks the original discussion is coalescing into a second and more nuanced conversation, namely: what is going on with the semantic web?

Wait, what? Who is even bringing up the semantic web?

Well, look, allow me a brief leap in context. In case you're not familiar and didn't bother reading the article I linked to just now, the semantic web was Sir Tim-Berners Lee's idea for the future of the web, where web pages would be intelligible to humans as well as computers. To be realistic about it, though, the semantic web ultimately amounted to not much more than a bunch of schema tags that we were supposed to throw into our HTML to make it easier for Google to do their job, but while it's fun to be cynical about it, let's not forget the real reason the notion of the semantic web exists: the dream of a decentralized web where everyone owns their data and information silos aren't a thing. More pertinently, though, the semantic web illustrates that, ever since the beginning of the web, there's been the idea that the web is meant to be accessible and open.

Agree or disagree—not the point. I'm only claiming this is what is at the heart of this second round of the fight pitting JS against UX: whether or not JS is becoming bloat that is keeping the web from being accessible and open.

As you can probably tell, this also runs in contempt culture territory, because it implies that frontend Javascript technologies are bad for the web. And while I think this argument has more intellectual merit than whether UX engineers are less cool than JS engineers or whatever, as you might infer, things once again got pretty heated. For the sake of brevity, here's a cursory list of the types of arguments being made:

  • Some people argue that using so much JS on the frontend is creating a scene where the fabric of the web that's supposed to tie us together is no longer human-accessible (implication being that's a problem).
  • Some people argue that it doesn't matter because the web is only a delivery method for digital products.
  • Some people argue that JS frameworks make the web impractical or inaccessible for people with accessibility needs.
  • Some people argue that, while accessibility concerns are a valid criticism, it doesn't mean that frameworks and best practices aren't still evolving and this is a solvable problem.
  • Some people argue that frameworks are making people overly reliant on technologies not inherent to the web, and new developers are losing grasp of the possibilities of raw technologies.
  • Some people argue that frameworks help tame the complexity of the web and allow people to become productive faster.
  • Some people argue that frameworks are needlessly bulky and make the web experience worse for people with crappier internet.
  • Some people argue that's also a solvable problem....

I wanted to back each of those sentiments with individual tweets expressing them concretely, but that's a lot of work, so I'm using my editorial discretion and not doing any of that. However, you can go on Twitter or Dev.to or Medium and do your own research—people are expressing these opinions.

None of this is new

This whole fight about the state and future of the web has long been a simmering disturbance in the Force, usually felt by developers as no more than a dull background throb, but every once in a while coming back with a jolt. This is evidently one such time. As developers though, we recognize this recurring argument as the worn motif of old, morphed but yet familiar, and existing as long as our industry has existed: what role should computers play on the theme of our collective human experience?

...yeah, OK—I'll tone down the philosophical flight of fancy.

But you know what I'm saying, at least. This is the industry that coined the hacker ethic, and free software, and open source, and Creative Commons, and "information wants to be free," and the aforementioned semantic web, and shit, we could even take it as far back as Doug Engelbart's notion of augmenting human intelligence with computers. All I'm saying is that developers have been known to entertain thoughts about the nature of the relationship between humans and computers.

So one good thing that's emerged from this fight is a renewed vigor in visiting this topic from the point of view of the web: what do we want out of it? What do we want the web to look like? What's worth preserving, and what's expendable? What new features do we want to see? Who's role is it to bring this all about? And what role will frontend engineers of every persuasion play?

Indeed, some of the people I've already mentioned in tweets have some pretty sharp observations on the future of the web. For example, in his excellent talk about the future of JavaScript, Kyle Simpson talks about whether we should let JavaScript become a mere compilation target (relevant bits at 27:50):

And in one of her great videos about modern CSS, Jen Simmons recommends to stop reaching for frameworks such as Bootstrap and to begin to use raw CSS and all its awesome features (relevant bits at 8:29):

And it couldn’t hurt to also watch this other excellent talk about why the semantic web as originally envisioned failed, and what we can do about it (summary slide thrown at around 1:09:24).

But maybe I digress....

Get to the point, author guy

Yeah, ok. My point is that there are a number of us (whoops, I guess I am choosing sides after all) who think the web should be a batteries-included, accessible platform for everyone, and that we should try hard to maintain its open and semantic nature. Some of us (me) even go so far as to buy into Sir Tim Berners-Lee’s idea that the web should be wholly decetralized and become solid scheming turtles all the way down or whatever. In this newly morphed discussion, let's call this extreme side A.

Then there’s others who think that it doesn’t matter if the web is just a compilation target: that the web only matters insofar as people are using it for real business purposes, and if this is so, then our only concern should be to deliver a good experience to our product’s users, and this hippy-dippy notion of the web as a place where we can hold hands and view readable source be damned. Let’s call this extreme side B.

No doubt, most people will have opinions that fall somewhere along that continuum, rather than at either extreme. To conclude, though:

  1. Chris Coiyer’s “the Great Divide” is meant to be descriptive, not prescriptive, of the state of frontend development.

  2. The conversation of whether UX Engineers should be paid as much as JS Engineers is mired in misunderstanding of what the hell UX Engineers even do and whether the appellation is just a fancy new name for “designers”, a word which in this context seems to carry the weight of substantial misplaced disgust. I would stay away from this.

  3. The conversation among sensible developers centers more around whether it’s OK or not that we’re using so much JS framework magic on the frontend that it’s in fact evolving the industry—less like gradually leveling up a Pokémon, and more akin to forcing a Thunderstone-induced transformation on Pikachu. I think there are good points to be had either way, but everyone involved would probably benefit from being careful not to tread in contempt-culture territory. Not that you need me refereeing your shit, but you know, it's my blog.

  4. Also, no surprises, but Twitter commenters who are not sensible can indeed be so much fodder for a hefty trash compactor.

  5. But fuck’em, because there’s a neat adult conversation to be had about the future of the web in spite of these people, so let’s, you know, get crackin' on that front: let's discuss the role of JS frameworks; let's discuss whether Web Assembly is really going to replace JavaScript, and whether we want it to; let's even discuss all the great new features available on the web... There's a lot to talk about, valid interpretations of our future as web denizens and as developers, and we should definitely sit down and talk it out.

You go first, though.


Latest comments (66)

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delimpit profile image
Delimp- Software Company

The difference between UI and UX isn’t always incredibly clear, but the two do have unique duties and tasks. If you ask an expert, most will say that user experience (UX) design deals with a person’s overall experience not just of a product, but of the entire company behind that product. User interface (UI) design, on the other hand, focuses on how that person interacts with that product.

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kater21 profile image
KateR21

I completely agree with your answer. But I want to add information from the article gapsystudio.com/blog/ui-vs-ux-desi... The main goal of UX design is to make sure that the product works logically from the starting point to the last. The basic principles of UI are to make an application, website or other product intuitive, attractive and as simple as possible to use using certain graphic solutions.

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davidbruchmann profile image
David Bruchmann • Edited

Interesting article.
One point in the whole discussion is somehow mentioned but in the result also dismissed:
How do search-engines treat the produced websites?
It's no problem to combine some JS-framework with plugins, extensions and some individual code to load some data via json or xml and produce a very nice (aka functional, nifty, ...) website. Just search-engines won't list a website produced like this very high.
Sure, there are always parts of websites where that doesn't matter, where crawling isn't intended anyway. There are details like diagrams (and so much other stuff) that is created dynamically by javascript, or javascript for functionally like sorting tables like the user wants it, modal-windows, etc. But many details still allow (more or less) accessibility, and can base on crawlable html-markup.
Building a complete website just by javascript is a huge step further and is just hardly interpreted by search-engines.

And in the comment of fluffy (dev.to/fluffy/comment/8ha0) it's mentioned that those pages are not accessible too. Sure that's always depending on hard- and software but I thought it wouldn't be a big issue anymore; interesting to read that it still is!

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sparkcruz profile image
Roger Cruz • Edited

Hey Uli, I don't think web designers (UX Eng.) should be compared to UX Designers in that case, as UX is not simply drawing interfaces but planning the whole user experiencie and flow of a service exposed by your application. Writting UIs with html+css+js is less UX than participating in the planning of the project and prototyping workflows.

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pembeci profile image
pembeci

Thanks for summarizing what went on and your insights. Your links were pretty helpful too. I especially appreciate your bringing up the Semantic Web angel. I agree that is way more important in the long term for every one of us in the webdev spectrum than these kind of tribal fights.

Just 2-3 years ago there were only a handful people who were advocating for more ethical machine learning practices and pointing out the problems. Nowadays how to fight inherent bias in ML algorithms, how to make their inferences more interpretable are active research areas and industry also took notice. I brought this example to find encouragement for discussing things you mentioned even if they are not the hottest topics currently. Eventually more sensible people will join the discussion and we'll find new ways. We always did in the dev world when it really matters and enough people became convinced that it matters. So I am optimistic.

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dangolant profile image
Daniel Golant

Followed. Thank you for capturing my frustration with just about every "What's the difference between s and s" post I see online.

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antonfrattaroli profile image
Anton Frattaroli

My concern with this is that the discussion revolves around effects and not causes. If we're unable to meet on a common ground then we're unable to work together to evaluate solutions.

Certainly things are changing, and it sounds like some UX engineers weren't in the loop on that. No one sane is discounting the importance of UX. I've seen a surge in interest in design systems lately and I consider that the industry's response to a need for restructuring. That might not be good enough, we'll see.

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ulitroyo profile image
Uli Troyo

UX engineers are in the loop, they just don't agree with the direction things are going. That's a valid position, and not a statement of ignorance.

That said, the picture isn't all bleak. I'd say if JS frameworks are able to adequately meet important accessibility concerns, there's not really a huge problem. Until that's addressed, though, especially in a way that accounts for the lack of expertise of new developers juxtaposed with the required cognitive load of these technologies, then it is a pretty big problem.

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antonfrattaroli profile image
Anton Frattaroli

Poor choice of words. "Out of the loop" meaning UX dev concerns weren't impactful in the larger conversation's process.

Material Design Components for the Web has done an amazing job with accessibility, but unfortunately development progress has lagged significantly behind framework-specific libraries like MaterialUI, Vuetify, etc.

I haven't worked with Storybook so can't speak to the developer experience, but that was one of the first solutions for a new front-end engineering framework workflow. I've gotten up close with Vue Design System, which isn't too bad. I'd like to hear about other' solutions and their experiences with them.

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ulitroyo profile image
Uli Troyo

I would too! Navigating the wealth of tech out there isn't easy; I'm sure there are better solutions that just the one's I've heard about. That's a big reason why I'd like this to be a broader conversation.

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altiano profile image
Altiano Gerung

So what about web assembly.. oops..

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ulitroyo profile image
Uli Troyo

Yeah, I mention that toward the end. But if you’re bringing it up because you also wrongly think it’ll be a drop-in replacement for JS, you should probably watch Kyle Simpson’s talk.

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altiano profile image
Altiano Gerung • Edited

Gimme link

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mylesfowler profile image
Myles Fowler

I understand that in Canada and European countries you need a engineering certification to have the title. In that regard, I understand it. If a software engineer is writing software that monitors your heart rate, you want assurances that it will work and if something should go wrong, you can hold the organization or person accountable who created it. That's how it works here (US) for other engineering disciplines.

However, in the US this isn't the case. The term "software engineer" is thrown around a lot and it's in a way commingled with "developer" or "programmer". In some cases we say the word as to not offend the individual. Again reiterating that other engineering disciplines are required to be certified. Just not the software variety.

In light of all that, by me expressing that design follows the same kind of "rigor" as engineering does not mean that i'm taking a side in that regard (Seriously, I don't care. Call yourself whatever you want.). I was merely speaking to the kind of philosophies good UX/UI professionals do (In my experiences.). They are held accountable for the products that they produce at least on a organizational and product level.

Hope that explains my initial posts.

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fluffy profile image
fluffy

As a user with accessibility needs I've been getting more and more frustrated at the state of the web because of all of the sites that use Angular or whatever for everything and just completely throw out all of the stuff that made the web useful in the first place. I wrote a rant about that from my perspective over yonder: beesbuzz.biz/blog/7456-Modern-web-...

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davidbruchmann profile image
David Bruchmann

Good to be informed that the old accessibility-basics are still important. I thought javascript perhaps wouldn't be a big deal anymore and it's good to know that it should be even today avoided for basic functionality of websites!

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ulitroyo profile image
Uli Troyo

Holy moly! That’s awful! Thanks for your input; I’m going to redouble my efforts.

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mylesfowler profile image
Myles Fowler

I'm not web developer/engineer/designer etc... However, your post did pique my interest. Regarding the job title nomenclature and what that entails, I believe if everyone simply accepted that they are all "skilled tradespeople" and have the same goals in mind, then maybe you can move past that. It seems really silly to get caught up in a title like that.

Regarding stacks, that is not isolated to the web (As I'm sure everyone who reads this post are aware of.).

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ulitroyo profile image
Uli Troyo

I completely agree. The specific title of “engineer” has been one of the most contested things about my post, and really I only defend it because of the implied “eww, design” attitude that some developers get.

You know what it remind me of? Did you watch that episode of the Office where Dwight was fighting about the difference in prestige between “Assistant Manager” and “Assistant to the Manager”?

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mylesfowler profile image
Myles Fowler

lol I hadn't seen that episode. I'll make a note to check that out.

Usability and design in a lot of ways (in my opinion) adhere to the same principals as engineering. Each choice must go through the same rigor as any complex backend system.

Reminds of the "full-stack" thing from years past (That still a thing?).

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drumstix42 profile image
Mark

See "UX developer" named everywhere, but never "UI". Is it one or the other, or both? When strictly talking about code, I would think we would be talking about UI developer.

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ulitroyo profile image
Uli Troyo

I'll be honest, I get confused by UX/UI in that respect; I'm not sure either way. I mean, user interactivity seems synonymous with user experience... so is the difference in the context of focus? I like user experience more for this reason: it seems to prioritize the focus rather than the... process? I dunno.

Honestly, I got called out for "engineer" too, and I'm not sure about that one either. "Engineer" seems to carry certain baggage of context. I like "developer" better for that reason. Or "producer", for that matter, but it's confusing enough that term is used two completely different ways in music and in movies, lol. But I'd love to say I'm a "web producer".

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drumstix42 profile image
Mark

User Interface is the structure of the layout. The presentation layer. The look and feel.

User Experience is a summation of "the entire process of acquiring and integrating a product, including aspects of branding, design, usability, and it's function" for the end-user.

Here's a good article usertesting.com/blog/ui-vs-ux/

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ulitroyo profile image
Uli Troyo

Ah, nice. Thanks for the clarification!

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niorad profile image
Antonio Radovcic

Some related observations/thoughts I don't know where else to put:

The Misunderstanding

React/Angular/...-Dev: "CSS in JS!"
"Classic"-static-page-Dev: "No! How would we.. It makes no sense!"
React/Angular/...-Dev: "Yes, it's so much better! Just shove it in your components"
"Classic"-static-page-Dev: "In my what? But Cascade!"

(spoiler-alert: both are right)

The Twitter/HN-Bubble

I would take popular tech-twitter with a truckload of salt.
Lots of them are marketing-folks (advocates, evangelists) so they are biased towards whatever their company does.
Lots of them are really smart, but in the end are only human, and can be victims to fallacies like all of us.
Most front-end-devs I talk to outside conferences never even heard about any of the folks mentioned in the article.
Not to mention the differences between Silicon-Valley and the rest of the world.

The web-dev-spectrum

My hypothesis: Everybody has their line where it becomes uncomfortable for them, on both sides, if you assume a web-dev-spectrum like (sorry for the simplification):

Concept/IA <-> Graphic Design <-> HTML/CSS <-> Style-JS (Anims, jQuery) <-> Techie-JS (TS, Ng, React) <-> THE API <-> Server-Side Dev. / Ops / OS/Systems-Dev

Even though I'm interested in all of those fields, my "home" is from HTML to Techie-JS.
I assume it's a bit different for everybody, especially as this spectrum gets finer grained, the bigger the company/team/project gets. But I also would say, that i.e. Systems-Devs with typography-skills are the exception to the rule.

CSS is hard

Most "CSS is hard"-rants which got my attention come from the tech-side of the spectrum. Are most issues with CSS really deficits in design-skill? Would they have the same issues with Sketch or Photoshop?
What makes them think CSS is easy? Do some years of full-time CSS and it won't be that hard anymore.

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ulitroyo profile image
Uli Troyo

I agree with everything you mention!

  • About the misunderstanding: I saw a response (here or on Twitter, not sure) that said that what matters is what's right for each team, as far as which angle to take, and I think that's both sensible and real.
  • About the Twitter bubble: yeah, I feel you; I enjoy the drama but I was made aware that some people, upon being faced by the negativity, actually get discouraged to enter the industry. My biggest regret from this writeup.

And in general, I like your use of headings to separate points, lol. Sorry, I enjoy formatting :D

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toddmillernyc profile image
Todd Miller

I think there's a certain amount of privledge in being a tech leader, or self employed developer.

What the author calls "extreme side B", is what most of us go in to work and have to do every day. Everything you do has to be attached to business value.

It's sad the web becomes less learnable every day, but telling people not to use frameworks and push pixels around, is out of touch, and pretty much impossible for most of us.

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ulitroyo profile image
Uli Troyo

Fair enough, although I don't think the argument is whether one should push pixels or use a framework. Modern CSS is very good at dealing with responsive layouts in a way that doesn't have one manually moving components around. Neither did I mean to imply that a developer shouldn't care about the business value of their work, but rather, that the discussion is around whether this can be done without removing the parts that make the web accessible. "No" is a valid answer, but it's an attitude as extreme as my own of "everything should be accessible", in the sense that these attitudes describe polar opposites, and most people would compromise somewhere along the middle (though most would lean one way or the other).

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craignewkirk profile image
Craignewkirk

If I had to choose a side, I’d be closer to what Chris labels a UX Engineer.

That said, none of this particularly concerns me.

I’ve been doing web dev for 25 years and coding for longer, and one trend has proven true over the years.

Tools & practices that have proven useful to the majority of client-side developers over a sustained period of time eventually get built into the core languages and are supported natively by the browsers. A couple quick examples: Bootstrap Grid -> CSS Grid (which is better than the original), JQuery Element Selectors -> Javascript getElementsByClassName, etc. Also, does anyone remember emulating border-radius by slicing a box into 9 sections for proper scaling?

The javascript engineering community is contributing by building tools that enable us to create great experiences. Will big companies be able to leverage them first? Sure, because resources. Will the useful tools and practices eventually become part of the core functionality for web languages and servers? History says yes. We just gotta let evolution do its work.

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pembeci profile image
pembeci

Aha, thanks for reminding me the border radius with 9 divs. I teach a Web Design and Development course in a CS department and this was one of my favourite examples ~10 years ago to demonstrate how you can get creative with CSS and unleash its awesomeness. I was pretty disappointed -and possibly the only person in the whole world feeling that way- when border-radius was introduced. Luckily they also invented this CSS animation thing and new CSS3 selectors so I was able to fill the gap in my lectures after saying farewell to manual border radius.

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