> HTML/CSS is nothing more than a way to describe the way a page should look like.

That completely misses the viewpoint of a standards guru (for HTML). HTML should describe semantics, meaning. No, I can't tell you what gives it meaning, even after 12 years of arguing about it...

The hours I've poured into debating "What is the best markup structure to mark up 'X'" (where there's no obvious HTML equivalent) is embarrassing. It mattered because as it had meaning it had to be right. Never mind that nothing read or interpreted the meaning so carefully inserted. It was about being part of a bigger movement and doing the right thing.

I used to refuse to do things for clients that weren't semantic, which blurred the line. This would now be laughable. Yet I feel empty on the inside in the 'new world' - if HTML and CSS are just the presentation framework, then nothing has the purpose or can support the meaning that writing good HTML used to bring.

It's the end of an era, and I would retire from web development if I could find another industry that brought the same challenges and successes as online in 2003. I've diversified and become a full-stack developer, but it's too large to maintain mastery of.

Hmm, semantics came from the APIs. Machines understand machines not by interpreting HTML but by special language that is made to be spoken between machines. The web of data has been largely achieved but but the organization of the data flow is taken over by human beings by tightly controlling what machines are talking with each other behind the scenes. HTML has been pushed even further to be a presentation tool rather than the medium for interconnected documents. machines rarely speak HTML these days but they talk with each other much more than before.

At the end of the day, HTML is just another text file that tells the browser how to display some content to the human beings while machines exchange data by API.

That's right. HTML/CSS/JavaScript is just another pile of technology for rendering graphics. There have been many others, and there will be more in the future. Those "web" technologies are useful now because the enabling runtimes (browsers) are in everything from smartphones to toasters.

The skill the author ought to master isn't the trick pony of HTML circa 2003, but rather how to present information to humans. That said, I'm sure the self-described gurus of buggy whip grip design probably were annoyed by the obsolescence of their hard-won knowledge too (or at least until they started working on driving wheels and road bikes).

Today, the debate is between the various native toolkits on mobile devices and HTML5. The winner will have the most engaging apps as measured by the success of their owners' companies. Maybe iOS 7 will win. Maybe Android. Maybe Microsoft's windowing kit in its next OS will win.

>Machines understand machines not by interpreting HTML but by special language that is made to be spoken between machines.

That special language is called html, that's the point.

>At the end of the day, HTML is just another text file that tells the browser how to display some content to the human

Just because you use it for only such tasks, doesn't mean the rest of the world does too. Plenty of us use it as intended.

> "The HTML/CSS guru should not exist anyway since the designer is supposed to decide how the page should look like,"

It's this idea that leads to a whole host of trouble. It's the implicit statement that HTML and CSS is just about a visual presentation. A designer (in the typical "I'm a web designer" mould) is singularly unqualified to deliver an accessible experience. Because they cannot let go of the visual aspects, and focus on the non-visual elements. And a lot of that is because Photoshop doesn't support concepts like text-equivalents to images, and tests for whether the page reads correctly in a non visual way.

And then there's interaction design. It's rare to see a web designer have a solid grasp of interaction. Again, because Photoshop doesn't support these concepts.

A static visual representation isn't enough. And so the output from designers with some HTML experience is not enough.

But you're right. The HTML/CSS guru should not exist. But designers are not amenable enough to take up those reins at a high enough quality. And programmers and engineers also seem incapable of generating high quality markup and CSS.

HTML/CSS is where the technical meets design, and neither specialists seems to comfortably handle this intersection. So integration is a pain point.