Ask HN: Is it just me, or is CSS too damn hard?
1) CSS is for implementing designs; being able to use it doesn&#x27;t require design sense for things like colors<p>2) I&#x27;m fascinated by the fact that so many of my fellow programmers - often the smartest ones - have so much trouble with CSS. I&#x27;m not sure exactly what the reason for that is, though I did write an article hoping to address it in some capacity: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;css-tricks.com&#x2F;css-is-awesome&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;css-tricks.com&#x2F;css-is-awesome&#x2F;</a><p>I think part of the problem is that many programmers, who like things to be orderly, see CSS as arbitrary and chaotic. Here&#x27;s the biggest point that I think has to click: CSS isn&#x27;t a programming language, it&#x27;s a <i>constraint</i> language. The browser has lots of default, complex behaviors that drive layout, and whereas in a traditional programming language you tend to &quot;build up&quot; from nothing, CSS is more about paring down and guiding that automatic engine with as few statements as necessary. You tell the browser exactly what your layout requires, and the browser figures out how to flesh that out into various contexts and situations.<p>Personally I think CSS is beautiful: it&#x27;s stateless and declarative, and it allows you to talk about huge swaths of entities in very general terms, gently paring down their avenues of expansion until the possibility space aligns with what your application requires. It&#x27;s incredibly elegant once you get the hang of it; I sometimes find myself wishing I could use a similar paradigm for talking about objects in other contexts.