By Harry Roberts CHAPTER 1

Chapter One · by harry rOberts

MoDeRn CSS aRChiTeCTuRe anD

fRonT-enD DeveloPMenT

n this chapter we are going to take a whirlwind tour of
a new approach to building more powerful front-ends for the Web
today. After the somewhat erratic introduction (there’s a lot to cov-
er, and so little time!), we’ll look at the nitty-gritty of structuring CSS for
modern, powerful websites. Our journey starts, somewhat unexpectedly,
in England, in the 1700s...

The Luddites
The Industrial Revolution, which occurred loosely between the mid-1700s
to mid-1800s, signalled a major shift in the world’s commercial manufac-
turing techniques; traditional hand-working and craftsmanship made way
for newer processes involving machines and automation. In early 19th-cen-
tury England, increasing mechanization gave rise to a group known as the
Luddites, a formation of artisanal textile workers — craftsmen and skilled
labourers — whose jobs were slowly but surely being made obsolete by the
new wave of machine-led manufacturing^1. The Luddites were an unfor-

1 Inayaili de León gave a fantastic talk at DIBI Conference entitled “The Mechanical Revolution” back
in 2011. This talk speaks in much greater detail about the plight of the Luddites, as well as likening their
agenda to that of Web developers. I urge you to look it up: https://vimeo.com/27487587.

I