> The joke here is that CSS is inadequate to fix that problem of overflowing text.

No, the joke is that in CSS the solution isn't always obvious and often takes multiple attempts (to a non-expert like me, anyway). Sometimes things you expect to work don't and you end up in the depths of Chrome Developer Tools trying to work out why.

I don't think people dismiss CSS as being inadequate, it's just occasionally difficult and frustrating.

What language or even tool is the above comment not true for?

Well, in other languages or tools you get a helpful error message, or you can add a break point or log output to a file.

In CSS, not so much. Edit, reload, review, repeat. I know it's not a fair comparison, but it's true.

Linters are helping in many of these cases.

In the same magnitude as CSS? None.

When people lament that our generation has had no great war, someone always brings up CSS and then a pall settles over the group. Hasn't that horror touched us all?

I mean, you always know web developers by that 1000 yard stare. O' the things they've seen; the horrors in the DOM.

Should we not remember the thousands of man-hours thrown carelessly away like so much water on the ground? And for what - to sell another "Dummies" version, more conference tickets?

No, if there is any justice, when the revolution comes those responsible for the axis of evil (CSS, DOM, Javascript and HTML) will be first against the wall.

Lest we forget!!!

>Can we stop bad-mouthing CSS in developer talks, please?

A better question would be, why?

CSS was "better than what we have" in the 90's. It's not optimal, kinda like Javascript. Other than HTML, what other technology uses something similar to CSS?

Haml or sass isn't css. So that pretty short "code" for the cube demo isn't possible in vanilla css -- without the preprocessor.

Being comfortable with the quirks of CSS paid my bills for half a decade so I'm not going to bag on it.

The Peter Griffin CSS gif is just perfect though.