A junior developer's blog post about learning React Router and CSS Modules this week reveals something more interesting than their progress: the TypeScript configuration problems they'll inevitably hit haven't changed since 2023.
The developer mastered CSS Modules' fundamentals - local scoping, automatic hashing, collision prevention. Standard stuff for the 1 million weekly npm downloads the package sees. What they haven't encountered yet: the TS2307: Cannot find module errors that plague every React TypeScript setup without proper type declarations.
This matters because CSS Modules remain widely deployed despite known friction points. The technology works - 70% of React applications use it or similar scoped styling - but the developer experience around TypeScript integration still requires manual configuration that catches teams off guard.
React Router adoption follows similar patterns. The developer understood the concepts but noted "small mental gaps" in practical implementation. Fair assessment. React Router dominates with 15 million weekly downloads and 70% market share, yet nested routing patterns consistently trip up new developers. The learning curve hasn't flattened despite years of documentation.
The alternative landscape tells a different story. Tailwind CSS hit 55% adoption in 2024 surveys, partly because it sidesteps the TypeScript integration headaches. Next.js App Router offers file-based routing that some teams prefer over React Router's component model. These aren't better solutions universally - they're different trade-offs.
What this developer will learn next: setting up typescript-plugin-css-modules in a monorepo, debugging import order issues, and configuring Vite properly for typed styles. The same configuration dance enterprise teams ran three years ago. The tooling improved incrementally, but the fundamental integration complexity remained.
The developer's reflection - "depth is what turns learners into builders" - holds. The question for CTOs: how much of that depth should be fundamental architecture versus wrestling with build configurations that could be solved upstream?