[darekkay]

HTML vs. CSS is a separation of technologies. If HTML was really only about the content and the CSS was only about styling, we wouldn't have to write div soups to style our websites (.container-wrapper .container .container-inner { /* "separation" */ }) and we wouldn't have to adjust our HTML when we change the layout.

[fainpul]

> we wouldn't have to adjust our HTML when we change the layout.

You don't have to: https://csszengarden.com/

[insin]

Fine for a static site which is frozen at the first version forever.

So, so, painful for apps which need to change and evolve over time, which I'm currently experiencing. It's too easy to break the bits where you needed to get clever to make a layout variant work.

I did also did a Zen Garden on YouTube recently when they removed the list view option from Subscriptions, restyling their grid markup was a fun CSS exercise.

[ruszki]

But for that designers should care about the limitations. But they don’t care. Not even about the more basic ones. I’m quite sure many of them don’t even know. Mainly, because their customers are not the one who code.

I got many designs for websites where customers told me that they want a pixel perfect version. The funniest one was when my boss who supposed to be a “senior” web developer told me this. Of course, there is no such thing on the web or really anywhere. Actually, I’ve never seen a design plan in which wildly different aspect ratios and sizes were really considered.

[zelphirkalt]

This doesn't solve the problem but:

If the designer is not aware of the ins and outs of the medium they are supposedly working with, they are not a very well informed and educated designer.

Just like I don't presume to be able to make a great product packaging design, without knowing firstly much more about visual composition and design, but also secondly the material and form and shape I am designing for. Will that be a plastic wrapper, a paper wrapper or some cardboard packaging? Without knowing the limitations and properties of each, how can I expect to create a good design?

Being that uninformed to me seems like not giving a shit about the quality of work one delivers, ergo not giving a shit about ones job, or simply not having the required understanding or skill to be any good at ones job.

[ruszki]

> not giving a shit about the quality of work one delivers

I’ve learned in the past decades that people who care about quality is the minority.

Look at any B2B software. They don’t care because their customers are different than who uses their products. They care about their customers only (managers). They pay attention to users as much as minimally possible without loosing customers.

This happens at every level.

[troupo]

And if you read the CSS there, it's an unmaintainable mess of absolutely positioned elements

[easyThrowaway]

CSS Zen Garden is quite the opposite of a good example of your point. Even small changes to the original page layout would completely break most of the provided styles.

If I removed the .page-wrapper class it would be also nearly impossible for a different developer to reverse-engineer the issue from the existing Template and CSS files.

[shimman]

Yes, if you remove CSS it does tend to break the CSS.

[easyThrowaway]

The point isn't simply "class removal affects cascading", but "anything upstream is capable of placing the original content in an unrecoverable state".

Where "anything" could be your framework, your CMS, you or your coworkers a few years after the original CSS has been written and you can't fully remember what ".format-header__nav-wrapper:not(:last-child) .model-header__nav-wrapper:not(:last-child)" is doing.

And yes, that's a real CSS selector from a refactoring job I'm doing right now.

[WorldMaker]

I find that most div soup is going away with CSS Grid. CSS Grid is often best when you lose wrappers and nesting. subgrid and display: contents help pop layers when you can't touch the HTML nesting, but now a lot of nesting feels unnecessary in the first place.

[pjmlp]

We only have to write div soups to style our websites, because people keep misuing a platform for interactive documents for an OS abstraction.