I think CSS is approaching the point where it's equivalent to assembly because it's impossible to keep up and write good CSS. It's no longer easy to do it by hand which is why there is a whole ecosystem of tooling that handles CSS.
Not to mention that CSS is essentially platform-specific due to differences between chrome, safari and firefox.
Some tooling is for managing the complexity caused by complexity of the site/app.
Some tooling is managing the complexity of managing component-centered design (particularly scoping); it's a very positive approach to design but it's not without its problems.
Some tooling is to help developers avoid having to actually learn the CSS language well and/or to force it into JavaScript.
> CSS is essentially platform-specific due to differences between chrome, safari and firefox.
That's an exaggeration. Consistency of implementations between browsers is better than its every been. There are still some vendor-prefixed properties to care about, especially if one is generous in one's support for older browsers, but that's another reason CSS tooling exists, to write only standard CSS and let the tool fill in the older variants.
What this article describes is no different than programming patterns in more traditional languages.
I legitimately can't think of anything that has made it more difficult to write by hand in the last 15 or so years; if anything it's never been easier! Building complex software is...complex, and frameworks and tools in the CSS world are no different than reaching for an MVC framework or ORM.
There's minor quirks between browsers, but it's a far cry from being platform-specific, and a huge improvement on the incompatibilities of yore.
Mirroring this sentiment. CSS is fantastic now and they've put a lot of careful attention into the new specifications. I haven't run into a situation in years where I was unable to lay something out the way I pictured it in my mock ups. We used to have to do a lot of hacking just to get simple things into layout in the mid to late 2000's.
That's true for every language/format used on the front end.
I do a lot of visual work as a designer/developer. If it weren't for the obvious accessibility caveats such as basic page structure, I'd be making at least 20% of the pages I code in straight SVG.
Edit: Maybe not HTML5 I guess... you can make anything inscrutable if you try.
Not to mention that CSS is essentially platform-specific due to differences between chrome, safari and firefox.