CSS was originally intended as some kind of general-purpose document layout mechanism. It sucked at that at the beginning and ESPECIALLY sucked at web-application layout. Admittedly, part of the reason was because browser-makers would not play nice together and with standards.

Meanwhile, desktop application developers have ALWAYS enjoyed decent, predictable layout mechanisms. It is so frustrating that it took the web-based world 2 decades to get their shit together.

CSS-grid is built into the CSS standard itself and should have been there from the beginning. It took way too long, but I am glad it's here now.