Next.js + GraphCMS

Should DevTools teach the CSS cascade?

css-cascadebrowser-devtoolscss-in-js

Mon May 24 2021

Harry Manchanda
Harry Manchanda

The CSS cascade and the closely related topic of CSS selector specificity are often misunderstood in the web development community. Unfortunately, my impression is that many developers never learned how CSS really works.

Trending solutions such as "CSS-in-JS" and Tailwind are definitely not helping with the overall understanding of this core web technology. The missing knowledge brings up the following questions:

Will it become less critical to know CSS in the future? I don't know, maybe one day... probably not...

Do I think that it's essential to understand how browsers apply styles today? Absolutely!

Side note: I'm not favoring or am advising to use any CSS solution out there. I prefer less complex frontends these days, but you do you!

I was thinking about developer education over the last few days and couldn't get the idea of teaching the cascade in the developer tools out of my head. This post proposes a small developer tools addition that I believe could help more developers understanding CSS.

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