The “CSS router” has always been quite the clever trick for navigating sufficiently small sites. This site uses it to scroll switch pages, and portable.fyi gets clever with visibility :target switching. Do it just right and no one notices unless they “inspect the elements”.

It’s always humbling when I get around to reading a web related spec. HTML and CSS have a lot of functionality. JavaScript’s not bad (it’s the easiest part of web development) but gives you just enough rope to do super silly things like reinventing all built in browser functions.

White spaces in HTML trick many into writing complex CSS — web development is trollish that way. Firefox’s developer tools show generated white spaces! Hopefully your abstraction is munging HTML faithfully. It’s easy to fight white spaces without realising it. That generally leads to using unsuitable display types and other shenanigans.

WordPress rants are a joy to read, but where’s the simpler, safer replacement? Never forget that software is highly corporatized and mostly crafted for corporations, not humans. WordPress sits among the few that mere mortals can work with and understand. The complete revival of static sites might save us, maybe.