The great divide

2019-01-23 #the-web #javascript / css-tricks.com

Chris Coyier consolidated an array of opinions about what it means to be a frontend developer today.

On one side, an army of developers whose interests, responsibilities, and skill sets are heavily revolved around JavaScript.

On the other, an army of developers whose interests, responsibilities, and skill sets are focused on other areas of the front end, like HTML, CSS, design, interaction, patterns, accessibility, etc.

It's that other side that seems to really be feeling this divide. A quote from Mandy Michael:

What I don’t understand is why it’s okay if you can “just write JS”, but somehow you’re not good enough if you “just write HTML and CSS”.

When every new website on the internet has perfect, semantic, accessible HTML and exceptionally executed, accessible CSS that works on every device and browser, then you can tell me that these languages are not valuable on their own. Until then we need to stop devaluing CSS and HTML.

A lot of these excerpts really hit home. I'm looking forward to the conversation this might spark.

Read the full piece on css-tricks.com.