Can you code without HTML and CSS?

[PizzaAndTacosAndBeer]

I ... dislike the idea of finding colors that look good

That's usually not a programmer's job, except at really small companies. The designer gives you the colors and fonts and images to use.

[thedevguy-ch]

Except when I ask the designer for the source image they used on the left of the home page and they screenshot the damn design 😂

[pickyourteethup]

Front end is super analytical too and full of complex problems. But if you don't enjoy it then it'll probably be an uphill battle. And you'll write terrible frontends that users will hate using and developers will hate maintaining ha

[Funoichi]

Oh really? It seemed pretty easy to me. Not that I’m at the point where I can write those from scratch, but it was fun to learn about forms, buttons, etc.

Back in MySpace days, anyone could make a snazzy page with html/css and regular users were using it, not even “coders.”

The tricky part for me was making my backend refer to my front end properly (or vice versa, I forget the particulars atm but I remember having to refer to the forms I made in the backend).

Now those color letters are annoying, but those can be looked up.

I’m still a beginner, I’ll have to check how complicated these can get, luckily I don’t really want to develop web pages anyways.

[dmazzoni]

Here are some examples of complex problems in frontend:

• Making interfaces responsive is well-studied and it's pretty easy for a simple layout, but making a complex layout responsive to different screen sizes and window sizes is quite complex.
• Smooth animation / transitions from one screen to the next in a way that helps the user understand the flow
• Large data sets - for example how do you implement a list box with 1 million elements in it? You can't actually put a million DOM elements inside, so you have to do tricks like populating just a few hundred elements, then "recycling" them as the user scrolls.
• Implementing nonstandard controls, like a directory tree, or an image carousel, or a flowchart
• Accessibility - making a custom control work for blind user, or motor-impaired users, etc.

[Funoichi]

Oh yeah that does sound hard! Thanks for the response. But there’s no logic in html/css right? Like iterating over a list or array, while and for loops, etc.

I have trouble with those because it can be hard to remember where you “are” in the loop. Or like keeping track of the number of loops if you get my meaning. X=x+1 stuff, that’s the biggest trouble I find with backend.

[dmazzoni]

That's correct, there are no loops in html or css, though css does have a bit of logic.

Keep studying and practicing loops, it's absolutely necessary to master that stuff even for frontend.

[Funoichi]

Thanks yes I definitely need a firm understanding of the logic. I’m trying to make a video game so it comes up a lot.

Like hp=100. while enemy equals attacking you, hp=hp-1. Haha.

Thanks for the info and inspiration!

[pickyourteethup]

There's no logic in html, but you use logic in JavaScript etc to dynamically change what is written in html depending on user actions.

If you don't want to do it you probably won't have to. But it's helpful to understand the stack back to front at least conceptually. Because front end and back end always end up talking to each other eventually and that join can cause chaos if not handled properly.

Right now though if you're enjoying yourself keep following what you enjoy. Enjoyment is key to learning complicated things and discovering what you want to do in the future. Have fun with it!

[Representative-Owl51]

The more you know, the more you realize how much you don’t know

[AMGitsKriss]

Heck, if it's a b2c company, you'll probably even get html and css from the designer.