A reflection on CSS's original design philosophy of simplicity, tracing how the language itself has remained declarative and non-intrusive since the mid-1990s while the complexity around it has grown. The post examines factors that have made modern CSS codebases more complex — including component-based architecture, professional design teams, tooling like preprocessors, and user-generated content — while arguing that the core language principles remain largely unchanged. The author concludes that added complexity is a deliberate choice, and developers should have good reasons before introducing it.
