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> HTML and CSS is pretty good considering the problems is solves. Agreed: pretty good. Shouldn't we pursue excellence?

• madeofpalk 2y ago
  I think CSS is excellent and pragmatic. Alternate layout engines for the web might be a fun experiment, PhD thesis, or talent retention program, but it's not practical.
  • zackbrown 2y ago
    > Alternate layout engines for the web might be a fun experiment, PhD thesis, or talent retention program, but it's not practical. Flexbox was once an "alternate layout engine for the web," as was Flash player, as is Figma. Framer, Retool, and Squarespace all offer alternate layout engines tailored for visual building. All of these seem practical to me.
    • themikesanto 2y ago
      All of the products you described are just tools that build HTML/CSS for you.
      • zackbrown 2y ago
        > just tools that build HTML/CSS for you 1. not Figma or Flash: it's not practical or performant to manipulate HTML/CSS to achieve the creative freedom of a vector design tool[0] 2. the rest of these that build on HTML: not a single one of them exposes that code for manual editing, so they're not developer tools and their "alternate layouts" are proprietary + locked away. The root issue: HTML was not designed to be a substrate for design. [0] I don't claim this casually; I spent several years seeking to do exactly this with github.com/famous/famous and https://www.haikuanimator.com/ https://www.haikuanimator.com/
• selfmodruntime 2y ago
  We do. Work on HTML and CSS is still in progress.