When someone says HTML & CSS is terrible I ask them to design something better that lets you represent user interfaces that can adapt across multiple screen sizes, and allow complex layouts that Flexbox and CSS Grid makes possible. It is easy to criticize something if you don't have to worry how you would do it better.

That said, HTML & CSS is just how the world currently is. It doesn't mean that it is the best possible way to do it. CSS could've been very different if not for many fortuitous events in history: https://eager.io/blog/the-languages-which-almost-were-css/

The best possible way to represent user interfaces is to represent them visually. Having to learn code to build UI is just today's limitation. While many have tried and failed to do better, this is still an open question.

Today maybe a designer must understand HTML & CSS to fully embrace the medium. But that means they have to get out of their visual thinking mode, and look at letters on a screen and interpret them in their mind's eye. As programmers we're used to it, but it doesn't mean it is the best nor the only way to do it.

So I'm all for articles like this that questions the status quo instead of accepting defeat and asking people to just get on with the program.