Is CSS A Programming Language? W/ Kevin Powell Whiskey Web And Whatnot: Web Development, Neat podcast

This week, Robbie and Adam talk with Kevin Powell about the quirks and complexities of CSS, from Tailwind and Flexbox to AI’s failure to write decent styles. While sipping some Crown Royal Black, they dig into weird web history, emerging CSS specs, toast milestones, and the beauty of clean code.

In this episode:

(00:00) - Intro
(02:51) - Whiskey rating & review: Crown Royal Black
(07:54) - Hot Take: Is CSS a programming language?
(09:54) - Hot Take: Was CSS-in-JS a mistake?
(10:53) - Hot Take: Grid vs Flexbox
(12:31) - Hot Take: Tailwind vs vanilla CSS?
(16:05) - Kevin's favorite place to write CSS
(17:45) - What CSS feature scares Kevin the most?
(19:20) - Kevin's first CSS pre-processor
(22:40) - CSS features that are taking too long to ship
(27:22) - text-box-trim vs margin-trim
(29:53) - Why attr() is a game-changer for CSS
(31:18) - NPM package chaos and security concerns
(32:16) - The “billion laughs” CSS attack
(33:19) - Why can't AI write CSS?
(36:52) - Wake-and-bake? Kevin’s sourdough & kombucha hobby
(38:42) - Kevin’s homebrewing and water shortage woes
(40:28) - Hobbies, football, and making time for fun
(42:44) - What would Kevin do if not in tech?
(44:41) - Kevin's favorite CSS typo
(45:58) - Rebuilding Tailwind from scratch
(46:53) - Vanilla CSS vs. Tailwind: Who wins a coding race?
(50:08) - Plugs

Links

Crown Royal Black: https://www.crownroyal.com/canadian-whisky/crown-royal-black
All Things Open: https://allthingsopen.org/
General Musings: https://www.youtube.com/@GeneralMusings
Frontend Masters: https://frontendmasters.com/
Shopify: https://www.shopify.com/
Ken Wheeler: https://x.com/ken_wheeler/
JavaScript: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/JavaScript
Figma: https://www.figma.com/
CSS Grid: https://www.w3schools.com/css/css_grid.asp
Flexbox: https://www.w3schools.com/css/css3_flexbox.asp
Tailwind CSS: https://tailwindcss.com/
Grok: https://grok.com/
CodePen: https://codepen.io/
VS Code: https://code.visualstudio.com
Emmet: https://emmet.io/
Vue: https://vuejs.org/
Saas: https://sass-lang.com/
Stylus: https://www.npmjs.com/package/stylus
TypeScript: https://www.typescriptlang.org/
CoffeeScript: http://coffeescript.org/
Sarah Soueidan: https://twitter.com/SaraSoueidan
Shepherd: https://www.shepherdjs.dev/
NPM: https://www.npmjs.com/
Swatch: https://swatch.dev/
Colorzilla: https://www.colorzilla.com/
TinyColor: https://bgrins.github.io/TinyColor/
CrowdStrike: https://www.crowdstrike.com/
Ember: https://emberjs.com/
GitHub: https://github.com/
Chris Coyier: https://x.com/chriscoyier
Virginia Tech: https://www.vt.edu/
The Eagles: https://www.philadelphiaeagles.com/
Saquon Barkley: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saquon_Barkley
Adam Wathan: https://x.com/adamwathan/
Kevin on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/kevinpowell

Connect with Kevin

Website: https://www.kevinpowell.co/
Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/kevinpowell.co
Courses: https://www.kevinpowell.co/courses/

Connect with the hosts

Robbie Wagner: https://x.com/RobbieTheWagner
Chuck Carpenter: https://x.com/CharlesWthe3rd
Adam Argyle: https://x.com/argyleink

Subscribe and stay in touch

Website: https://whiskey.fm
Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/whiskey-web-and-whatnot/id1552776603
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/19jiuHAqzeKnkleQUpZxDf
Overcast: https://overcast.fm/itunes1552776603
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@WhiskeyWebAndWhatnot

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