Is CSS a Programming Language? w/ Kevin Powell

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

Connect with Kevin

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

Connect with the hosts

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

Subscribe and stay in touch

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

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