A long long time ago I saw this GIF for the first time - and I really felt it. Today this hasn’t changed that much. Unfortunately.
How I feel about CSS
For me CSS was always a little weird. You describe with a set of rules how you want something to look, and the browser makes it happen - it seems so easy. But there have been situations where it did not behave like I expected especially when I wanted to lay out things a certain way.
I never used CSS intensively since I usually don’t do layouts from scratch. UI work is not a big part in my day-to-day doing. As of now I have mainly worked on CMS sites with pre-build themes or corporate applications which were build with existing UI frameworks that just needed some little tweaking here and there.
If I had a CSS problem I was always able to work it out somehow with the help of the internet or colleagues. But the feeling that I did not really grasp what I was doing persisted.
I get along with CSS, but I am not as good at it as I want to be. And this is bothering me.
What is the problem with learning CSS?
I think the main problem is that today a lot more focus is put on other technologies like for example JavaScript libraries. There is an immense load of new things to learn to stay up to date, but time is limited. We have to choose what to learn and CSS might not be the first thing in the line.
There is also a problem with the way we learn CSS. I think this quote sums it up quite nicely.
I do think that the way CSS has been taught - as a collection of tricks - hasn't helped people understand the language. And I've done that in the past too. You can understand modern CSS as a system, and it makes a lot more sense when you do.
— Rachel Andrew (@rachelandrew) December 4, 2020
The phrase collection of tricks really hits it in my opinion. Thats exactly how I experienced CSS.
Why I want to learn CSS
As described in the beginning, I don’t like that uneasy feeling about CSS and simply want to be more competent in it. I don’t want it to feel weird. Although I might not need it very often, it is still a good skill to have.
Today to little focus is put on the fundamental technologies of the web. It is tempting to skip directly to the fancy stuff and start building things now without building a solid foundation of knowledge.
I want to work on my understanding of these fundamentals to solidify my knowledge of web development as a whole - and understanding CSS as a system is my next step in this direction.