Chukwuemeka Nelson Nwauche

December 30, 2024

Article Response 9 (Learning CSS)

A lot of new CSS features have shipped in the last years, but actual usage is still low. While there are many different reasons for the slow adoption, I think one of the biggest barriers are our own brains.

My preferred way of learning new techniques like that is by tinkering with stuff in the safe playground of a side project or a personal site. After some trial and error, a pattern might emerge there that sort of feels right. And if enough people agree on a pattern, it could even become a more common convention.

Article - https://mxb.dev/blog/old-dogs-new-css-tricks/

In this article, the author talks about all the new CSS features that developers have available to them which aren’t being used.

He gives a few reasons why these features don’t seem to be so readily adopted including the “support” excuse, the lack of a visible improvement in workflow and IMO the most important reason being muscle memory. If you can already solve a problem one way, solving it in a more efficient way would actually be less efficient for you in the short term. In other words, it’s as much about the workman as it is about the tool.

All in all, a great article to chew on both for the knowledge and the philosophical questions it poses about using new features of a familiar tool.

Thanks for reading and as always, all comments, critiques and questions are highly appreciated. Here's a link to the previous article response.

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