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Tailwind is the only technology that I found absolutely revolting at first glance & was sure I would hate, but turned out the opposite. For me, it's the epitom
by gavinray 5y ago
Tailwind is the only technology that I found absolutely revolting at first glance & was sure I would hate, but turned out the opposite.
For me, it's the epitome of "Don't knock it until you try it."
(Close second is TypeScript. Which was less that I found it revolting, and more that I didn't understand the point properly.)
I think, of every developer I know the arc has always been the same (with the exception of 2 who still don't like it):
"Wtf is this, this is the worst thing I've ever seen."
"Yeah but like, just TRY it though. Write ONE app in it."
It's the tooling/IDE experience that really does it IMO.
Tailwind took the "Java/Go" approach of standardization and top-notch IDE integration + Dev workflow. You don't have to think about anything, because it's all been thought out for you, yet not in a way that's limiting (bunch of tiny composable pieces and allows you to go outside the "happy path" defaults if you want).
Looking back at the start of my career, it now seems caveman -like that you would onboard on to a project, and they would each have these massive CSS files with class names that ONLY had meaning to that particular project + were entirely subjective. And transformed over time, too.
Sure:
<section id="landing-page-banner" class="panel secondary">
Reads easier, but I have no idea what that actually _means_
With Tailwind, WYSIWYG, and it's all fully autocompleted + gives you color previews inline and helpful visual cues for positioning etc.
I'm sure something better will eventually come along, but Adam really nailed it with this one as far as I'm concerned.
Signed,
Former Nonbeliever