As I've been thinking about this, I do wonder if starting with grids as the foundation would have been a better approach. As I understand it, early CSS focused on stuff like color and font style, with primitive layout tools. Over time better tools have been bolted on, but it's messy.
Say we merged flexbox and grid into a unified system, and threw away the other layout algorithms. At the same time, made some tweaks to clarify margin, border, padding, and overflow. Maybe that's a good foundation.
As I've been thinking about this, I do wonder if starting with grids as the foundation would have been a better approach. As I understand it, early CSS focused on stuff like color and font style, with primitive layout tools. Over time better tools have been bolted on, but it's messy.
Say we merged flexbox and grid into a unified system, and threw away the other layout algorithms. At the same time, made some tweaks to clarify margin, border, padding, and overflow. Maybe that's a good foundation.