I feel like the tech industry takes itself far too seriously sometimes. I get frustrated by all the posturing and gatekeeping – “You’re not a real developer unless you use x framework”, “CSS isn’t a real programming language”.
I think this kind of rhetoric often puts new developers off, and the ones that don’t get put off are more inclined to skip over learning things like semantic markup and accessibility in favour of learning the latest framework.
Having a deeper knowledge of HTML and CSS is often devalued.
Posturing and gatekeeping, indeed. I’ve yet to witness a conversation where discussing what is or isn’t “real” programming was fruitful for anybody.
Related sentiment from Mehdi Zed about PHP:
Most developers who hate PHP hate it out of elitism or ignorance. Either way it’s dumb.