5 ms·

So am I the only person seeing htmx and tailwind together and feeling absolutely disgusted? Like a wall of run on sentences and no paragraphs. I can’t believe t

by rgbjoy 3y ago

So am I the only person seeing htmx and tailwind together and feeling absolutely disgusted? Like a wall of run on sentences and no paragraphs. I can’t believe tailwind is a thing…

_lvbh 3y ago
I used to love tailwind. Used it a ton. Not so much anymore. Plain CSS is enough for me.
wg0 3y ago
I have opposed Tailwind to no end. But I gave it a try and the portability it brings to markup is beyond description. You just move HTML from anywhere and it would just look exactly the same (subject to your overrides/customisations of course) so I don't think Tailwind is going away anywhere. Rather, it now can be thought of as a mini language or notation built on top of CSS.
tuzemec 3y ago
I personally don't like Tailwind. But I do see a lot of benefits of using utility classes for basic layout stuff. So far UnoCSS works very well for me. It's like light-weight and customizable Tailwind. Also for more complicated "components" I use css modules and refer to my theme values via directives (I think this is doable in Tailwind too?).
naasking 3y ago
The pain or disgust is a strong hint that you're thinking about it wrong. If you have a bunch of repetitive CSS, how do you typically eliminate that? You create a class that bundles it all together and then just use the class name on the HTML. But notice how you're then left with a bunch of repetitive HTML on which you apply those classes. If you bundle up the repetitive HTML into a reusable abstraction (like a component), then you're no longer repeating the CSS and so you don't need to bundle the CSS into classes anymore, thus reducing work. A type of inline styles, without the limitations, then gives you more direct control over styling on the bundled HTML itself. That's how you should use Atomic CSS/Tailwind.
sergiotapia 3y ago
As a dev, I like Tailwind. As a consumer, it has stripped away a lot of how I learned to write websites in the first place. "View Source" is confusing now. Gone are the days of beautiful CSS selectors. Tailwind sacrificed that for dev ux. The next generation will have a harder time learning about web primitives. And htmx is not something I need for these days thankfully. I use phoenix liveview and get away with writing very little pretty dumb code. It's wonderful.
- mcintyre1994 3y ago
  I hadn’t really thought about that! I guess LiveView kind of does the same because often I’ll look at the network requests of a page to understand/debug stuff and you can’t really do that with LiveView because you just get the HTML updates over the socket.
- andirk 3y ago
  The whole "name it what its purpose is rather than what it does" like "alert-danger" rather than "giant-red-text" seems to have been thrown out with a lot of Tailwind. It prefers chaos but chaos is so much easier to adjust outliers. Those 2 divs have double the spacing between them? Just take the mx-5 off of one! It's hideous but so easy. Constant find/replace all.
  - quickthrower2 3y ago
    flex and gap-5 are king
    - andirk 3y ago
      Yes! A few of the many, many, many CSS definitions to get us where `<table>` got us in 1996. See ya later colspan, rowspan.
  - LudwigNagasena 3y ago
    You can add your `alert-danger` and whatever you need in `tailwind.config.js` or even directly in your root css file using CSS variables.
iamgopal 3y ago
That’s where web components comes in.
hipadev23 3y ago
I dislike tailwind too. Maybe I just use it wrong. But if I say have a number of similar-ish elements with many overlapping classes, when I need to make a change it affects numerous lines of code. Traditional CSS? I’d update a style in a few specific spots and everything benefits.
- artificialLimbs 3y ago
  You can still use your own custom classes with Tailwind.
  - beezlewax 3y ago
    And then you've come full circle though right? I wish I liked tailwind it's all the rage but I just don't
- sureglymop 3y ago
  You can still use normal css if you're styling multiple things. I think tailwind shines mostly when the css does not need to be reusable or is encapsulated in a component which is how it works in some modern web frameworks. The reason why it is big is efficiency. Once people know those class names by heart, they get a "nice" (arguably) default style very quickly without jumping between multiple files. This matters more than one might think..
niceice 3y ago
The love for tailwind might be explained as mass psychosis. It's like the coding version of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dancing_mania https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dancing_mania
- mhh__ 3y ago
  I dunno. I've always absolutely hated jumping around CSS styles, tailwind has got me actually making nice UIs.
- unclebucknasty 3y ago
  When I first encountered Tailwind, I sincerely thought it was satire—that its authors were making a really clever and elaborate joke about the state of front-end dev. Then, I encountered the raving fans. That's when I knew the shark had been jumped.
- rpmisms 3y ago
  No, it's a hatred of CSS. CSS is a pain, tailwind is a balm. I use tailwind on everything, extend or modify tailwind as needed, and write very little CSS. I have also stopped having dreams of strangling css-grids to death since I started doing this, so something's working.
  - 8n4vidtmkvmk 3y ago
    Sounds like you just don't know modern CSS. I rarely have trouble styling things how I want these days.
    - rpmisms 3y ago
      Unfortunately, I do. Modern CSS is not modern SASS.
      - erhaetherth 3y ago
        I'm not familiar with modern Sass. Has it evolved much in the last decade? I'm still using Less because I installed it 10 years ago and it still works great, but there's almost 0 features that haven't been adopted into CSS now so I really don't need at all. There is 1 I guess. I wrote a loop somewhat recently because there doesn't appear to be a variable for DPI yet. `env(dpi)` doesn't exist or I could have did what I wanted: scale a <canvas> element to be 1.0 scaling regardless of the user's screen scaling.
RobertWHurst 3y ago
It's great for influencers and beginners because of the ability to copy and paste examples plus the hype. The moment you put a scenario where there is no boilerplate available on the table, the utility of tailwind goes out the window. As for Htmx, it's nothing new. I don't dislike it, but comparing it to web frameworks like React is missing the point. A lot of what it gives you (or doesn't) can already be achieved with a bit of vanilla js and, if you're feeling fancy, jQuery. Advocating for it as a replacement for something like React is sort of like recommending a bicycle to someone who drives. Yeah, it has its place, but it doesn't replace the utility of the car. Insisting it does indicate you don't know much about cars - or maybe bikes. Anyway htmx uncomfortably reminds me of the MVC servers we use to write 15 years ago where the frontend always ended up being an unreadable unmaintainable mess after a few years because the frontend was treated as a random collection of assets for views to use.
SnoozingBoa 3y ago
You are not. As a dev I understand the temptation of Tailwind, but I don’t see the benefits really worth it in all cases where I see it’s used. Writing plain CSS just makes so much more sense in the long run.
mathgladiator 3y ago
I'm leading a large project right now, and I'm shocked at how well tailwind is working such that everything is consistent. I even hired a personal intern to build "headwindcss" that converts existing websites into tailwindcss templates using the computed style. A future project of mine is to build a mini-browser of sorts, and I'm going to use tailwind as the minimal basis for getting the CSS to work. so... I'm enjoying it... like a lot.
- unclebucknasty 3y ago
  I'm actually working on a project called "Failwind". It uses AI to figure out what you were trying to do with Tailwind, then rewrites your CSS using semantic classes.
tracker1 3y ago
You aren't the only one... I liked bootstrap combined with a component library that abstracted it a bit much more. I'm thinking something similar using a web component library could be good. Maybe material or fluent based.
zaphirplane 3y ago
You are obviously entitled to hold whatever view. I didn’t feel informed or enlightened by your comments. I wish people move away from describing things they dislike as bad, horrible, dumpster fire. Describing the problem in a discussion site is always better

by rgbjoy 3y ago

So am I the only person seeing htmx and tailwind together and feeling absolutely disgusted? Like a wall of run on sentences and no paragraphs. I can’t believe tailwind is a thing…

_lvbh 3y ago

I used to love tailwind. Used it a ton. Not so much anymore. Plain CSS is enough for me.

wg0 3y ago

I have opposed Tailwind to no end. But I gave it a try and the portability it brings to markup is beyond description. You just move HTML from anywhere and it would just look exactly the same (subject to your overrides/customisations of course) so I don't think Tailwind is going away anywhere. Rather, it now can be thought of as a mini language or notation built on top of CSS.

tuzemec 3y ago

I personally don't like Tailwind. But I do see a lot of benefits of using utility classes for basic layout stuff. So far UnoCSS works very well for me. It's like light-weight and customizable Tailwind. Also for more complicated "components" I use css modules and refer to my theme values via directives (I think this is doable in Tailwind too?).

naasking 3y ago

The pain or disgust is a strong hint that you're thinking about it wrong. If you have a bunch of repetitive CSS, how do you typically eliminate that? You create a class that bundles it all together and then just use the class name on the HTML. But notice how you're then left with a bunch of repetitive HTML on which you apply those classes. If you bundle up the repetitive HTML into a reusable abstraction (like a component), then you're no longer repeating the CSS and so you don't need to bundle the CSS into classes anymore, thus reducing work. A type of inline styles, without the limitations, then gives you more direct control over styling on the bundled HTML itself. That's how you should use Atomic CSS/Tailwind.

sergiotapia 3y ago

As a dev, I like Tailwind. As a consumer, it has stripped away a lot of how I learned to write websites in the first place. "View Source" is confusing now. Gone are the days of beautiful CSS selectors. Tailwind sacrificed that for dev ux. The next generation will have a harder time learning about web primitives. And htmx is not something I need for these days thankfully. I use phoenix liveview and get away with writing very little pretty dumb code. It's wonderful.

mcintyre1994 3y ago
I hadn’t really thought about that! I guess LiveView kind of does the same because often I’ll look at the network requests of a page to understand/debug stuff and you can’t really do that with LiveView because you just get the HTML updates over the socket.
andirk 3y ago
The whole "name it what its purpose is rather than what it does" like "alert-danger" rather than "giant-red-text" seems to have been thrown out with a lot of Tailwind. It prefers chaos but chaos is so much easier to adjust outliers. Those 2 divs have double the spacing between them? Just take the mx-5 off of one! It's hideous but so easy. Constant find/replace all.
- quickthrower2 3y ago
  flex and gap-5 are king
  - andirk 3y ago
    Yes! A few of the many, many, many CSS definitions to get us where `<table>` got us in 1996. See ya later colspan, rowspan.
- LudwigNagasena 3y ago
  You can add your `alert-danger` and whatever you need in `tailwind.config.js` or even directly in your root css file using CSS variables.

iamgopal 3y ago

That’s where web components comes in.

hipadev23 3y ago

I dislike tailwind too. Maybe I just use it wrong. But if I say have a number of similar-ish elements with many overlapping classes, when I need to make a change it affects numerous lines of code. Traditional CSS? I’d update a style in a few specific spots and everything benefits.

artificialLimbs 3y ago
You can still use your own custom classes with Tailwind.
- beezlewax 3y ago
  And then you've come full circle though right? I wish I liked tailwind it's all the rage but I just don't
sureglymop 3y ago
You can still use normal css if you're styling multiple things. I think tailwind shines mostly when the css does not need to be reusable or is encapsulated in a component which is how it works in some modern web frameworks. The reason why it is big is efficiency. Once people know those class names by heart, they get a "nice" (arguably) default style very quickly without jumping between multiple files. This matters more than one might think..

niceice 3y ago

The love for tailwind might be explained as mass psychosis. It's like the coding version of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dancing_mania https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dancing_mania

mhh__ 3y ago
I dunno. I've always absolutely hated jumping around CSS styles, tailwind has got me actually making nice UIs.
unclebucknasty 3y ago
When I first encountered Tailwind, I sincerely thought it was satire—that its authors were making a really clever and elaborate joke about the state of front-end dev. Then, I encountered the raving fans. That's when I knew the shark had been jumped.
rpmisms 3y ago
No, it's a hatred of CSS. CSS is a pain, tailwind is a balm. I use tailwind on everything, extend or modify tailwind as needed, and write very little CSS. I have also stopped having dreams of strangling css-grids to death since I started doing this, so something's working.
- 8n4vidtmkvmk 3y ago
  Sounds like you just don't know modern CSS. I rarely have trouble styling things how I want these days.
  - rpmisms 3y ago
    Unfortunately, I do. Modern CSS is not modern SASS.
    - erhaetherth 3y ago
      I'm not familiar with modern Sass. Has it evolved much in the last decade? I'm still using Less because I installed it 10 years ago and it still works great, but there's almost 0 features that haven't been adopted into CSS now so I really don't need at all. There is 1 I guess. I wrote a loop somewhat recently because there doesn't appear to be a variable for DPI yet. `env(dpi)` doesn't exist or I could have did what I wanted: scale a <canvas> element to be 1.0 scaling regardless of the user's screen scaling.

RobertWHurst 3y ago

It's great for influencers and beginners because of the ability to copy and paste examples plus the hype. The moment you put a scenario where there is no boilerplate available on the table, the utility of tailwind goes out the window. As for Htmx, it's nothing new. I don't dislike it, but comparing it to web frameworks like React is missing the point. A lot of what it gives you (or doesn't) can already be achieved with a bit of vanilla js and, if you're feeling fancy, jQuery. Advocating for it as a replacement for something like React is sort of like recommending a bicycle to someone who drives. Yeah, it has its place, but it doesn't replace the utility of the car. Insisting it does indicate you don't know much about cars - or maybe bikes. Anyway htmx uncomfortably reminds me of the MVC servers we use to write 15 years ago where the frontend always ended up being an unreadable unmaintainable mess after a few years because the frontend was treated as a random collection of assets for views to use.

SnoozingBoa 3y ago

You are not. As a dev I understand the temptation of Tailwind, but I don’t see the benefits really worth it in all cases where I see it’s used. Writing plain CSS just makes so much more sense in the long run.

mathgladiator 3y ago

I'm leading a large project right now, and I'm shocked at how well tailwind is working such that everything is consistent. I even hired a personal intern to build "headwindcss" that converts existing websites into tailwindcss templates using the computed style. A future project of mine is to build a mini-browser of sorts, and I'm going to use tailwind as the minimal basis for getting the CSS to work. so... I'm enjoying it... like a lot.

unclebucknasty 3y ago
I'm actually working on a project called "Failwind". It uses AI to figure out what you were trying to do with Tailwind, then rewrites your CSS using semantic classes.

tracker1 3y ago

You aren't the only one... I liked bootstrap combined with a component library that abstracted it a bit much more. I'm thinking something similar using a web component library could be good. Maybe material or fluent based.

zaphirplane 3y ago

You are obviously entitled to hold whatever view. I didn’t feel informed or enlightened by your comments. I wish people move away from describing things they dislike as bad, horrible, dumpster fire. Describing the problem in a discussion site is always better