Here is a summary of the key points from the Hacker News post:
Positive Sentiment
- Appreciation for how far CSS has come over the years in terms of capabilities like trigonometric functions, animations, etc.
- Praise for the thoughtfulness and attention to detail in the ongoing evolution of CSS.
- Acknowledgement that CSS syntax itself is well designed.
- Examples of complex UI effects possible with modern CSS are impressive.
Negative Sentiment
- Concern that CSS has suffered from too much feature creep over the years.
- Frustration that CSS was not designed as a real programming language from the start.
- Complaints about lack of browser compatibility and having to support old browsers.
- Criticism that CSS does not cleanly separate structure and presentation.
- Belief that HTML and CSS are not suited for building complex interactive UIs.
Recommended Actions
- Create a "YouCanUseCSS.com" site to clearly document latest CSS features supported across browsers.
- Improve documentation and tutorials focused on modern CSS capabilities.
- Make browser implementations more consistent.
- Continue work on Houdini APIs to open up CSS internals to JavaScript.
- Long term, consider ways to evolve CSS fundamentals while maintaining backward compatibility.
Here are the most relevant external links from the Hacker News post:
Appendix
Note: this section is auto-generated by asking Claude to extract the links and may not be accurate.
- Mercury Lang - Programming language mentioned for CSS layout
- Building a Professional Design Tool on the Web - Figma blog post referenced
- CSS is Turing Complete - Proof that CSS is Turing complete
- Can I Use - Browser compatibility tables referenced
- CSS Effects Tutorials - YouTube channel linked for CSS animation examples
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