I'm a scientist, and "Not a real programming language" gives me big vibes of arguing that a thing is a science (usually economics) because they're using "is a science" as a proxy when they actually mean to say that their field is important and valuable.
I've dabbled enough with CSS that I know how much I don't know, and I don't think respect for a skillset is (or should be) measured by whether a thing is a "real programming language"