5 ms·

Was always curious, why it was Tailwind that won 'utility-first css' and not https://tachyons.io https://tachyons.io which did this approach first.

by nikivi 6y ago

mxstbr 6y ago
Exactly! Tachyons was awesome and ahead of its time but its core design system wasn't as well made as Tailwind's is. Also, to be fair, Tailwind's marketing game is out of this world as well. They are literally some of the best developer marketers on this planet!
- busterarm 6y ago
  Tailwind is also like half a megabyte minified and zipped vs Tachyons 20kb.
  - config_yml 6y ago
    But who uses all those tokens from the full tailwind build? Maybe if you use the CDN build? That's why purgecss is builtin. It's dead simple to setup and you'll have only the used classes in your CSS output.
    - busterarm 6y ago
      I agree, I've just seen this kind of thing before and have low expectations of what people will do with it. Basically I'm expecting people to be lazy and use the full thing. Especially the CDN build.
- subpixel 6y ago
  You can create (or recreate) Tachyons using Tailwind, and take advantage of all the bells and whistles that the later offers that the former does not.
- uxcolumbo 6y ago
  Can you give some examples of what they did marketing wise that helped it being adopted more widely than Tachyons?
  - cambalache 6y ago
    They wrote a book that is pretty popular. Thanks to their connections with the Laravel leadership they got Tailwind as a somehow default for the front-end in Laravel. I dont know if it is organic or not, but there are dozens of articles about Tailwind coming up daily in sites like Medium and Dev.to.
  - rendall 6y ago
    Have you seen the trailer for Tailwind 2? https://youtu.be/3u_vIdnJYLc https://youtu.be/3u_vIdnJYLc
  - ediatedia 6y ago
    Adam Wathan actually wrote about it: https://adamwathan.me/tailwindcss-from-side-project-byproduct-to-multi-mullion-dollar-business/ https://adamwathan.me/tailwindcss-from-side-project-byproduc... I think one of the most powerful things was making a course then giving it away - really goes far to boost your prominence as a developer and building those lists.
corobo 6y ago
Tailwind creator is mates with the Laravel creator so got a big boost in eyeballs from that. I guess Tachyons didn't have that. If I can be honest the name is a pain in the arse to remember too
leftnode 6y ago
Great marketing (and this is from a huge fan of Tailwind). Marketing, even for OSS projects, is incredibly important.
jozzy-james 6y ago
great documentation, good 'outreach' presence around the interwebs from the team, sensible class naming (tachyons can get a little...eh, imo), the build possibilities are quite nice (tho may be as flexible in tachyons...haven't used it in quite some time), responsive everything (mostly), the laravel bump as mentioned - all in all an evolution of previous attempts that resonates better i guess.
desmap 6y ago
I still use Tachyons which I find way better. It*s just a css mapper with much saner design decisions.
benfrain 6y ago
Ha, you kids! What about the REAL project that kicked off atomic styling: https://acss.io https://acss.io pioneered by Thierry Koblentz and friends while at Yahoo. Everything that came since is just a variant, in principle, of that. It never gets the props!
bridgejupiter 6y ago
I think the biggest thing is documentation. Tachyons has basically none, the only way you would even know that you can do responsive design with it for example is by reading all of the CSS. Case in point from this very thread: > i'm trying to find it in the docs - but how do you apply a different border on mobile, tablet and desktop via tachyons? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25333465 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25333465 You can't cross the chasm from early adopter tinkerer types to the more mainstream community without teaching people how to use your tool.
deltron3030 6y ago
I think it's because of the hardcore minimalism of the creators or Tachyons and also Theme UI, it lacks mass appeal because of it. If you dig into Steve Schogers style (the guy behind Refactoring UI and Tailwind aesthetics) you'll see that he's more in the Streamline Moderne camp than Bauhaus minimalism, his stuff looks more "designed" in the sense of how non designers think about good design. Tachyons is kinda invisible..

Was always curious, why it was Tailwind that won 'utility-first css' and not https://tachyons.io https://tachyons.io which did this approach first.

by nikivi 6y ago

Was always curious, why it was Tailwind that won 'utility-first css' and not https://tachyons.io https://tachyons.io which did this approach first.

mxstbr 6y ago

Exactly! Tachyons was awesome and ahead of its time but its core design system wasn't as well made as Tailwind's is. Also, to be fair, Tailwind's marketing game is out of this world as well. They are literally some of the best developer marketers on this planet!

busterarm 6y ago
Tailwind is also like half a megabyte minified and zipped vs Tachyons 20kb.
- config_yml 6y ago
  But who uses all those tokens from the full tailwind build? Maybe if you use the CDN build? That's why purgecss is builtin. It's dead simple to setup and you'll have only the used classes in your CSS output.
  - busterarm 6y ago
    I agree, I've just seen this kind of thing before and have low expectations of what people will do with it. Basically I'm expecting people to be lazy and use the full thing. Especially the CDN build.
subpixel 6y ago
You can create (or recreate) Tachyons using Tailwind, and take advantage of all the bells and whistles that the later offers that the former does not.
uxcolumbo 6y ago
Can you give some examples of what they did marketing wise that helped it being adopted more widely than Tachyons?
- cambalache 6y ago
  They wrote a book that is pretty popular. Thanks to their connections with the Laravel leadership they got Tailwind as a somehow default for the front-end in Laravel. I dont know if it is organic or not, but there are dozens of articles about Tailwind coming up daily in sites like Medium and Dev.to.
- rendall 6y ago
  Have you seen the trailer for Tailwind 2? https://youtu.be/3u_vIdnJYLc https://youtu.be/3u_vIdnJYLc
- ediatedia 6y ago
  Adam Wathan actually wrote about it: https://adamwathan.me/tailwindcss-from-side-project-byproduct-to-multi-mullion-dollar-business/ https://adamwathan.me/tailwindcss-from-side-project-byproduc... I think one of the most powerful things was making a course then giving it away - really goes far to boost your prominence as a developer and building those lists.

corobo 6y ago

Tailwind creator is mates with the Laravel creator so got a big boost in eyeballs from that. I guess Tachyons didn't have that. If I can be honest the name is a pain in the arse to remember too

leftnode 6y ago

Great marketing (and this is from a huge fan of Tailwind). Marketing, even for OSS projects, is incredibly important.

jozzy-james 6y ago

great documentation, good 'outreach' presence around the interwebs from the team, sensible class naming (tachyons can get a little...eh, imo), the build possibilities are quite nice (tho may be as flexible in tachyons...haven't used it in quite some time), responsive everything (mostly), the laravel bump as mentioned - all in all an evolution of previous attempts that resonates better i guess.

desmap 6y ago

I still use Tachyons which I find way better. It*s just a css mapper with much saner design decisions.

benfrain 6y ago

Ha, you kids! What about the REAL project that kicked off atomic styling: https://acss.io https://acss.io pioneered by Thierry Koblentz and friends while at Yahoo. Everything that came since is just a variant, in principle, of that. It never gets the props!

bridgejupiter 6y ago

I think the biggest thing is documentation. Tachyons has basically none, the only way you would even know that you can do responsive design with it for example is by reading all of the CSS. Case in point from this very thread: > i'm trying to find it in the docs - but how do you apply a different border on mobile, tablet and desktop via tachyons? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25333465 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25333465 You can't cross the chasm from early adopter tinkerer types to the more mainstream community without teaching people how to use your tool.

deltron3030 6y ago

I think it's because of the hardcore minimalism of the creators or Tachyons and also Theme UI, it lacks mass appeal because of it. If you dig into Steve Schogers style (the guy behind Refactoring UI and Tailwind aesthetics) you'll see that he's more in the Streamline Moderne camp than Bauhaus minimalism, his stuff looks more "designed" in the sense of how non designers think about good design. Tachyons is kinda invisible..