Framework-First Thinking Is Costing Developers the Native Web
A recent exchange highlighted by Jim Nielsen, quoting Eric Bailey, underscores a worrying trend in web development: developers are so accustomed to frameworks that they’re shocked when native HTML does the job. One Twitter user pointed out that the <details> element can "create a native HTML accordion," and the response was disbelief: "this works without Bootstrap? 🤯."
The issue, as Eric Bailey explains, is that this mindset teaches people to work framework-first. When developers rely on libraries before the platform itself, they discard the interoperability and accessibility baked into the web. The problem compounds: as fewer people use native elements, the more those elements are perceived as irrelevant, creating a self-fulfilling cycle of neglect.
This phenomenon is common on GitHub, where developers are routinely astonished by <details>, assuming it’s a proprietary feature of the platform. It's not — it's just HTML. To prove the point, the article includes a nested series of <details> elements revealing "Readers, it's just HTML (lol)."
There’s no single perfect moment to learn HTML, though starting early helps. Many encountered it through WordPress PHP templates, while others learned it as JSX or inside .vue files. That's analogous to learning a song on guitar before grasping keys, scales, and voicings. But failing to return to the fundamentals is limiting — and on the web, it risks doing real damage to the platform's accessibility and longevity.
