Jim Nielsen quoting Eric Bailey:
He references an example on Twitter where someone noted you can use the
<details>element to “create a native HTML accordion,” to which someone responded: “this works without Bootstrap? 🤯”What’s the problem here? From Eric:
the problem that arises from this situation is that it teaches people to think and work framework-first. When that happens, the hard-won, baked-in interoperability and, importantly, accessibility of the [web] platform is thrown away. It’s a compounding problem, as well: The more people don’t use the elements made available to us, the more the notion exists that they’re irrelevant.
I’ve seen people on GitHub routinely amazed by <details>, and assume it’s a special GitHub feature.
Readers,
it’s
just
HTML (lol)
Seriously though, I’m not exactly sure when the perfect time to learn HTML is. Early on, for sure, but I wouldn’t blame anyone for not learning it first. I’m sure I learned it in the context of WordPress PHP templates. I’m sure a lot of people are learning it in the form of JSX or .vue files these days. That’s fine. It’s like learning to play “(Sittin’ On) The Dock of Bay” on guitar before you learn about keys and scales and voicings. But if you never circle back to the fundamentals, it’s limiting, and in the case of the web, damaging.
Couldn’t agree more. We need to fundamentally rethink how we teach web development.
And it’s not that using frameworks is bad. It’s the bad assumptions that arise from learning development through a framework-based lens.