I recently had the opportunity to attend the 2017 Web Directions Code conference in Melbourne. I was put in a speaking group with Mark Dalgleish and Glen Maddern (who gave an excellent talk). We gave a series of presentations on CSS, and in the panel discussion, we discussed the question “Is there a place in the industry for people who can only write CSS and HTML but not JavaScript”.

To me, this can be simply explained as: “Is someone who can’t write JavaScript worth anything?” Based on some of the audience’s comments later, this seemed to be how many understood questions.

To put it bluntly: this is not a CSS vs JS article. If you’re looking for this kind of article, you’re probably in the wrong place. This is not about elegance, this is about people and expectations.

So, we posed a question to the audience: Would you hire someone who could only write CSS and HTML? Not a single hand went up. I was a little disappointed.

I understand why anyone wants to hire someone who can do everything. But what I don’t understand is why “can only write JS” is OK and “can only write HTML and CSS” is not ok.

If every website that goes live has perfect, semantic, executable HTML, and CSS that runs on any device or browser in exceptional circumstances, then you can tell me: none of these languages are worth much. But until then, stop belittling CSS and HTML.

To be clear, I’m not disparaging JavaScript. I love JavaScript and all the cool stuff that ES6 brings to us. But styling can also create exciting, cool opportunities. If your job is to write JavaScript, you are just as cool as someone who writes CSS and specialises in accessibility, SVG, animation, etc.

One of my concerns is that many people don’t see the value in focusing on writing CSS and HTML. I really don’t understand the idea. In our industry, everyone who works with us provides value. HTML and CSS are both a big part of this guessing game, and I (perhaps naively) think we’ve reached a high point: we’ve come to appreciate the challenges of different professional fields. But I guess I was wrong, because the idea is still very common.

It’s cool that there are a lot of people with multiple skills, but just because those skills apply to them doesn’t mean that everyone has to master them. It’s like “Should designers be able to type code?”

Want to know the answer to that question? They can code if they want to.

It’s not always beneficial to know everything, especially if you only have superficial knowledge. Sometimes it might be exactly what you need, and sometimes you might benefit from someone who is committed to understanding a particular skill in depth. This applies to everything, not just the front end.

The worst thing about promoting the know-it-all mentality is that we’ve ended up creating an industry full of jaded psychopaths. We had people give talks at conferences about health, impostor syndrome, and full-stack anxiety, but despite that, we stuck with the idea that we had to know everything and be amazed.

It’s our fault that the idea spread to the industry. We are employers, we write job descriptions, we set expectations and, worst of all, we allow people to belittle the work of colleagues and friends.

But the good news is that it doesn’t have to be this way, and we don’t have to put people in the spotlight anymore. We have the power to make a difference, and we can create a better industry in which people are mentally healthy rather than in a constant state of anxiety, able to channel energy and passion towards creativity, able to collaborate and discover new ways to solve problems.

I’ve had a lot of people chat with me, or send me private messages on Twitter, thanking me for questioning. We have smart, hard-working people struggling, struggling, suffering because we don’t know how to respect someone whose passion is CSS and HTML rather than JS.

Imagine what the Web would be like if we all focused our energy on innovation and collaboration instead of devaluing each other’s work.

To summarize a long story: I love CSS, I love HTML, I love JavaScript. They’re all important and valuable on the front end. What I don’t like is the constant internal struggle and belittling. Let’s stop and appreciate everything. It’s great if you want to and have the ability to learn everything, but it’s ok if you don’t have the ability.

Special thanks to Sandy for editing this article!