Maybe enough already throw mud CSS at developer conferences?

At almost every developer conference, there will be a report about this “funny gif” here:

Peter Griffin from the animated series of the same name is trying to close the blinds and confuses them completely, tugging at the ropes at random, until he loses his temper and tears them off the window. The inscription on the picture: "CSS".

The public always loves it, and from here you can successfully move on to a story about CSS problems and examples of how to solve them. But in most cases - and the more “tech-nary” this conference is, the more likely it is the beginning of a raid about how disgusting this CSS is, how terrible its architecture is and how illogical it is. Etc...

Here's what: I'm sick of it. This is not witty, it is not true, and because of this we look like pompous know-it-alls, to whom everything would just work as usual. This builds a hard barrier between "developers" and "people doing all kinds of web stuff," they are also "fake developers." This is nonsense. Impudent, dangerous nonsense that does not help us - not a bit - to develop our community of developers so that we would like to join new people, very different.

There is a fact: we do incredibly complex, impressive and beautiful things on the web. In the most democratic system of dissemination of information and - to date - on a high-tech and amazing software platform. If you think that you know every face of it and cope with all this without the help of other fellow experts, you are blinded by your own self-confidence. And I wouldn’t spend time working with such a booth.

Yes, it’s easy to mock up CSS and its “frankenstein” syntax. It is also easy to show that all his tasks can be solved with other technologies. But this does not give the right - in general - to demean and ignore people who like CSS and for whom it is their favorite tool for creating great user interfaces.

In other words: do not like it - do not use. Work with someone who likes. By the fortuneteller do not go, that if you use technology that you do not take seriously and do not like, then the output will get crap. This is a waste of time. When you complain about the difficulties due to the fact that you wanted the technology to bend under the rules of your comfort zone, you actually complain that you have not mastered it. Those who are lucky to love technology and master its strengths do not have such difficulties.

More and more this circle with the inscription “CSS awesome” pops up:

This is a joke about the fact that CSS is not suitable for solving this problem with getting out the text. Well, tell me, how should I have acted? Add scrolling? In CSS this is possible. Just cut the text? You can too. Trim and add dots at the end? Could be so. Will any of these solutions be good? Not. The main thing here is that the text did not fit into the container. A fixed web container is a mistake. You can not fix anything in the environment, which by definition can be of any size and form factor. So the mistake here is in the thinking of fixed containers, and not at all in the fact that CSS does not do something magic with text that is not under your control. It would surely make you bad for the interfaces.

Weakly you look at the stunning things that Ana Tudor does on CSS , and tell me in your face that this is “unreal programming” and done in “stupid language”?

CodePen example

Just try not to see the advantages of flexboxes and the ability to create dynamic interfaces that adapt to the amount of content and the needs of screens of any size that they give us, as Zoe Mikli Gillenwater tells about them:

And if you can not come to the delight of the power grid layout, which tells Rachel Andrew ?

Try not to lose your head from the beauty of building complex layouts with the help of text and shapes that are not bound by rigid pixel thinking, as explained by Jen Simmons .

And just try not to marvel at the power of CSS filters with blending modes and the scope for artistic creativity that they discover, as explained by Yuna Kravets :

Video on Vimeo

So the next time you want to “make a joke about CSS funny,” keep in mind, please, that the people who understand it are not letters that are repainted. CSS is a very expressive language for creating complex interfaces, covering a wide variety of user needs. If you are not able to realize all this - and I myself admit that you are no longer able to - have a conscience not to belittle those who are aware. Better thank them for this work and work with them together.