5 ms·

I've never had as much fun doing front-end web stuff as I've had since I've picked up tailwind.

yieldcrv 2y ago
this is the honeymoon phase, wait until your package manager and transpiler is out of date, and your progressive web app framework is out of date, and your typescript version isnt compatible with the upgrade yet, and tailwinds isnt either or it is but none of the documentation is yet, but you have to upgrade because your CI/CD cant run your version of node anymore and now you have 100 flags across 5 configuration files and dont know which one to change to make everything work, but changing it might break the ability for a random dependency to compile, and even if you get that to work it turns out your project doesnt render anymore
- quantadev 2y ago
  Good rant! That's kind of what web-development seems like sometimes. Almost every part of the technology stack is there to fix some other part of the stack that never was ideal to begin with. TypeScript being the best example. It only exists because JavaScript sucks, and JavaScript only ever existed because in 1994ish some guy failed to get Java to run in the browser, and the only reason we're building apps in what was originally a "Document Rendering" system (HTML) was also not by design either but just an accident of history. One train wreck after another.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  - agos 2y ago
    no, it's not a good rant. this is the billionth "web dev is too complicated!" rant that is present under every. single. thread. about any technology vaguely related to front end development.
    - deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
    - phist_mcgee 2y ago
      This site leans heavily backend it seems. There's a strain of patent smugness that comes with a lot of comments about frontend on this site and it's quite disheartening to see it. You rarely see frontend devs disparaging backend devs for their tech choices.
      - quantadev 2y ago
        I think back-end development is a much more "comfortable" lifestyle (I'm full stack myself), even if lots of it is technically more difficult coding than front end (i.e. multiple threads, databases, load-balancing, etc), because there's a new front end technology that comes out every couple of years, making many of the front end tech stacks become obsolete rather fast and they're super fragmented in terms of large numbers of different and unique frameworks. Not to mention how plagued front end work was for so many years due browser incompatibility issues. For example, on the back end in Java there's been just basically SpringBoot for a decade, and as long as you keep up with it's minor changes you're all set.
        phist_mcgee 2y ago
        I get where you’re coming from, but I think it oversimplifies the challenges front-end developers face, and it feels a bit dismissive of their expertise. Front-end development isn’t just about chasing frameworks—it’s about crafting intuitive, performant, and accessible user experiences in a landscape that’s constantly evolving to meet user needs. Backend stability has its advantages, but the rapid evolution on the front end reflects a response to real-world challenges—like improving developer ergonomics, addressing accessibility, or enhancing performance. Front-end devs often have to bridge the gap between design, user needs, and tech constraints in ways backend systems rarely have In the end, the fragmentation you see in front-end frameworks is a strength. It’s not “easier” or “harder”—just different kinds of challenges. Both disciplines are vital, and dismissing one does a disservice to the teams and individuals who keep these systems working in harmony.
- BillyTheKing 2y ago
  or just use bun? used to also face all these issues - but with bun it's mostly gone for now (and for newer projects) - hope it stays that way!
  - yieldcrv 2y ago
    I use bun where I can, and I’ve upgraded old projects to it successfully the main project I work on uses nx, sst, and pnpm, it’s all tightly coupled. this project is fine for now. just different.
  - assimpleaspossi 2y ago
    Or just use CSS. Never had any of those issues.
    - azangru 2y ago
      Always the right choice!
- inopinatus 2y ago
  It’s a standalone executable.
- norman784 2y ago
  What do you think are the best option to avoid that? I was wondering what could I do with a project that I have that is a long lived code base, so we have some legacy parts. Looking at the alternatives I was considering Vite with React and Vue plugins (and try to migrate my code so it works by default without any other configuration in Vite) or try Astro (because I have Vue and React) with their default configuration, but still not sure what would be the best option. If it where just for me I would rather use React like framework (while I don't like that much React) but at least bun supports JSX out of the box and they seems to be working towards having a bundler integrated.
- notRobot 2y ago
  I've been using it for a long time now and the honeymoon period hasn't ended. I do understand what you're saying, but luckily I keep it pretty simple with a standalone tw executable and no node.js or complicated frameworks, so I have been able to avoid these pitfalls. https://tailwindcss.com/blog/standalone-cli https://tailwindcss.com/blog/standalone-cli
davidsainez 2y ago
I resisted using it for a long time, it just seemed too much like read-only code for me. But I've been building my latest project with it, and I have never iterated on the front end more quickly. It is great fun.
- iKlsR 2y ago
  80/20 is the greatest "thing" of all time. You critique it from the outside but when you're in, oh man.
notsylver 2y ago
i've been using it for... years? and it still feels like magic when i use it. v4 fixes my only real issue with it which was the config file feeling so detached and rough compared to everything else.
devjab 2y ago
I don’t work on the frontend very often, I think the last time I did so was when bootstrap was “the tailwind”, but when I recently had to cover for one of our react developers I got to work with it. I genuinely didn’t think there was a difference in my work flow between the two. Looking up meta language magic in the official documentation and then using it through brute-force development. Maybe I’m missing something, more likely I’m just a terrible frontend developer. The latter is true either way. These days I’ll use HTMX and let a LLM do the CSS. Unless I specifically have to work on something which faces customers. So I’m wondering if there is some trick to tailwind I’m missing?
- throwup238 2y ago
  Bootstrap is so much worse because of all the nested CSS styles. One of the big benefits of utility classes is that they’re relatively isolated to one element (with a few exceptions like tailwind’s group classes). This has a lot of benefits like eliminating spooky action at a distance and making elements so independent they can just be copy pasted between Tailwind projects. If you’re brute forcing Tailwind then you need to study CSS fundamentals. The vast majority of its utility classes are essentially 1:1 translations of CSS properties with some syntax sugar and DX improvements. Translating them to custom classes is a mechanical process even without @apply. There are even browser extensions like Windy that can rip HTML elements with arbitrary CSS to Tailwind classes.
  - devjab 2y ago
    Probably, I’m just sharing how it feels to use it when you work on frontend once a year.
vendiddy 2y ago
I feel the same. I tried many css solutions over the years and always made a mess. Tailwind is by far the first time I'm productive with styling. I'm impressed with everything they've built.
caustic 2y ago
Is tailwind better than CSS modules, and if so then why?
- agos 2y ago
  they serve different purposes. CSS modules is a (great) mechanism for providing isolation, very useful in the context of today's component-oriented front end development. Tailwind provides some (quite good) building blocks for a design system, such as a palette, a sizing scale, values for shadows and rounded corners... and a vast set of classes to apply them. The set of classes covers basically every CSS feature, making it possible to slap everything in the class attribute of your HTML elements and never or almost never have to deal with CSS files. In other words, CSS modules is a solution for those who love CSS and needed just a way to not deal with naming clashes without resorting to BEM. Tailwind is a tool for those who very much would like to avoid writing CSS
  - EasyMark 2y ago
    Maybe I should revisit this stuff. I’ve been fighting anything other than my own custom CSS classes for a while. It’s beginning to look at bit dated and I have no interest in rewriting them for the few sites that I support (family members and a couple of charities). I am no web guru and much prefer my hobby/day job of embedded stuff that you’ll never see on a GUI. I keep hearing great stuff about tailwind though.
    - floydnoel 2y ago
      i was all-in on simple hand-rolled CSS for the longest time but finally gave Tailwind a try because of a work project. it was a pleasure to use once i did. i like to use it with DaisyUI also. the part i like is that all the classes i need are already written so its just putting pieces together.

this is the honeymoon phase, wait until your package manager and transpiler is out of date, and your progressive web app framework is out of date, and your typescript version isnt compatible with the upgrade yet, and tailwinds isnt either or it is but none of the documentation is yet, but you have to upgrade because your CI/CD cant run your version of node anymore and now you have 100 flags across 5 configuration files and dont know which one to change to make everything work, but changing it might break the ability for a random dependency to compile, and even if you get that to work it turns out your project doesnt render anymore

quantadev 2y ago
Good rant! That's kind of what web-development seems like sometimes. Almost every part of the technology stack is there to fix some other part of the stack that never was ideal to begin with. TypeScript being the best example. It only exists because JavaScript sucks, and JavaScript only ever existed because in 1994ish some guy failed to get Java to run in the browser, and the only reason we're building apps in what was originally a "Document Rendering" system (HTML) was also not by design either but just an accident of history. One train wreck after another.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- agos 2y ago
  no, it's not a good rant. this is the billionth "web dev is too complicated!" rant that is present under every. single. thread. about any technology vaguely related to front end development.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  - phist_mcgee 2y ago
    This site leans heavily backend it seems. There's a strain of patent smugness that comes with a lot of comments about frontend on this site and it's quite disheartening to see it. You rarely see frontend devs disparaging backend devs for their tech choices.
    - quantadev 2y ago
      I think back-end development is a much more "comfortable" lifestyle (I'm full stack myself), even if lots of it is technically more difficult coding than front end (i.e. multiple threads, databases, load-balancing, etc), because there's a new front end technology that comes out every couple of years, making many of the front end tech stacks become obsolete rather fast and they're super fragmented in terms of large numbers of different and unique frameworks. Not to mention how plagued front end work was for so many years due browser incompatibility issues. For example, on the back end in Java there's been just basically SpringBoot for a decade, and as long as you keep up with it's minor changes you're all set.
      - phist_mcgee 2y ago
        I get where you’re coming from, but I think it oversimplifies the challenges front-end developers face, and it feels a bit dismissive of their expertise. Front-end development isn’t just about chasing frameworks—it’s about crafting intuitive, performant, and accessible user experiences in a landscape that’s constantly evolving to meet user needs. Backend stability has its advantages, but the rapid evolution on the front end reflects a response to real-world challenges—like improving developer ergonomics, addressing accessibility, or enhancing performance. Front-end devs often have to bridge the gap between design, user needs, and tech constraints in ways backend systems rarely have In the end, the fragmentation you see in front-end frameworks is a strength. It’s not “easier” or “harder”—just different kinds of challenges. Both disciplines are vital, and dismissing one does a disservice to the teams and individuals who keep these systems working in harmony.
BillyTheKing 2y ago
or just use bun? used to also face all these issues - but with bun it's mostly gone for now (and for newer projects) - hope it stays that way!
- yieldcrv 2y ago
  I use bun where I can, and I’ve upgraded old projects to it successfully the main project I work on uses nx, sst, and pnpm, it’s all tightly coupled. this project is fine for now. just different.
- assimpleaspossi 2y ago
  Or just use CSS. Never had any of those issues.
  - azangru 2y ago
    Always the right choice!
inopinatus 2y ago
It’s a standalone executable.
norman784 2y ago
What do you think are the best option to avoid that? I was wondering what could I do with a project that I have that is a long lived code base, so we have some legacy parts. Looking at the alternatives I was considering Vite with React and Vue plugins (and try to migrate my code so it works by default without any other configuration in Vite) or try Astro (because I have Vue and React) with their default configuration, but still not sure what would be the best option. If it where just for me I would rather use React like framework (while I don't like that much React) but at least bun supports JSX out of the box and they seems to be working towards having a bundler integrated.
notRobot 2y ago
I've been using it for a long time now and the honeymoon period hasn't ended. I do understand what you're saying, but luckily I keep it pretty simple with a standalone tw executable and no node.js or complicated frameworks, so I have been able to avoid these pitfalls. https://tailwindcss.com/blog/standalone-cli https://tailwindcss.com/blog/standalone-cli

davidsainez 2y ago

I resisted using it for a long time, it just seemed too much like read-only code for me. But I've been building my latest project with it, and I have never iterated on the front end more quickly. It is great fun.

iKlsR 2y ago
80/20 is the greatest "thing" of all time. You critique it from the outside but when you're in, oh man.

notsylver 2y ago

i've been using it for... years? and it still feels like magic when i use it. v4 fixes my only real issue with it which was the config file feeling so detached and rough compared to everything else.

devjab 2y ago

I don’t work on the frontend very often, I think the last time I did so was when bootstrap was “the tailwind”, but when I recently had to cover for one of our react developers I got to work with it. I genuinely didn’t think there was a difference in my work flow between the two. Looking up meta language magic in the official documentation and then using it through brute-force development. Maybe I’m missing something, more likely I’m just a terrible frontend developer. The latter is true either way. These days I’ll use HTMX and let a LLM do the CSS. Unless I specifically have to work on something which faces customers. So I’m wondering if there is some trick to tailwind I’m missing?

throwup238 2y ago
Bootstrap is so much worse because of all the nested CSS styles. One of the big benefits of utility classes is that they’re relatively isolated to one element (with a few exceptions like tailwind’s group classes). This has a lot of benefits like eliminating spooky action at a distance and making elements so independent they can just be copy pasted between Tailwind projects. If you’re brute forcing Tailwind then you need to study CSS fundamentals. The vast majority of its utility classes are essentially 1:1 translations of CSS properties with some syntax sugar and DX improvements. Translating them to custom classes is a mechanical process even without @apply. There are even browser extensions like Windy that can rip HTML elements with arbitrary CSS to Tailwind classes.
- devjab 2y ago
  Probably, I’m just sharing how it feels to use it when you work on frontend once a year.

vendiddy 2y ago

I feel the same. I tried many css solutions over the years and always made a mess. Tailwind is by far the first time I'm productive with styling. I'm impressed with everything they've built.

caustic 2y ago

Is tailwind better than CSS modules, and if so then why?

agos 2y ago
they serve different purposes. CSS modules is a (great) mechanism for providing isolation, very useful in the context of today's component-oriented front end development. Tailwind provides some (quite good) building blocks for a design system, such as a palette, a sizing scale, values for shadows and rounded corners... and a vast set of classes to apply them. The set of classes covers basically every CSS feature, making it possible to slap everything in the class attribute of your HTML elements and never or almost never have to deal with CSS files. In other words, CSS modules is a solution for those who love CSS and needed just a way to not deal with naming clashes without resorting to BEM. Tailwind is a tool for those who very much would like to avoid writing CSS
- EasyMark 2y ago
  Maybe I should revisit this stuff. I’ve been fighting anything other than my own custom CSS classes for a while. It’s beginning to look at bit dated and I have no interest in rewriting them for the few sites that I support (family members and a couple of charities). I am no web guru and much prefer my hobby/day job of embedded stuff that you’ll never see on a GUI. I keep hearing great stuff about tailwind though.
  - floydnoel 2y ago
    i was all-in on simple hand-rolled CSS for the longest time but finally gave Tailwind a try because of a work project. it was a pleasure to use once i did. i like to use it with DaisyUI also. the part i like is that all the classes i need are already written so its just putting pieces together.