The term frontend developer didn't really exists back then because allmost all the logic code was on the server.
I have worked in large corps and smaller agencies as a full stack / front-end dev for about 18 years.
This wasn't just the case in my part of the world. There were prominent online publication that were extolling the virtues of designers embracing creating their designs in CSS and HTML and moving away from using Photoshop.
First you say that you have never herd of designers working with HTML and CSS and then you say that prominent online publications were advertising it?
- Designers were not working with HTML and CSS (this was about ~2008-2011). I met one "designer" who would do HTML and CSS back in about 2015. I met another woman that could do it in 2022. I've worked in a bunch of web agencies and corps.
- Some designers due to emergence of smart phones had started experimenting with using HTML 5 and CSS 3 to create responsive designed.
- There were articles in online publications and blogs where people were extolling the virtues of it, trying to convince others.
- This ultimately didn't happen. People are still using Photoshop if they are not using Figma. You have dedicated front-end devs and/or teams in most orgs if they actually care about the UX/UI quality. Otherwise they just just use a bootstrap/tailwind theme and call it a day.
I stopped doing frontend dev primarily back in 2023 after I realised I was still fixing the same stupid iOS bugs from a decade before hand.
I don't really understand why you first claim that designers absolutely were not writing CSS and then go onto admitting that they even wrote articles about why everyone should.
That is a very clear contradiction. Clearly a lot of designers were writing CSS otherwise they wouldn't write about it...
I really don't know what to say with this statement. Obviously there were very few doing so, and trying to evangelise others into doing so. I think I made that crystal clear.
It seems you are getting hung up on the difference between "I've encountered this very rarely" and "none". If that is your complaint you are simply nitpicking. Which is what I suspect you are doing.
> That is a very clear contradiction. Clearly a lot of designers were writing CSS otherwise they wouldn't write about it...
No you cannot draw that conclusion. If there were already at the time "a lot" they wouldn't need to try to evangelise others to do so would they? There is no contradiction at all. Again this feels like you are angling for something that not there.
TBH from my interactions with you so far, It feels like you're wilfully misinterpreting my statements for gotcha. So I would rather we would leave it there.