Comment by conatus | Hacker News Reader

Comment by conatus | Hacker News Reader

Cool to see this out, but there is something about Tailwind I've never really got. And this is not from abstraction, but in production use on a number of pretty large sites.

Each Tailwind class corresponds to a CSS property, with a few exceptions where you have utility classes for degrees of that property (for example, padding, margin). Then along come these CSS component libraries, which substitute a thicket of these utility classes for a single class. Including Tailwind UI itself.

Given that the relationship of class to property is one to one, why not cut out the middle person and just use CSS directly? There seems no real advantage. You've basically indepedently re-invented CSS, while adding a strange layer of additional abstraction on top. It is nice and fast to write it in the HTML I'll grant, but, the speed advantage is not so great that it is worth it compared to the mental overhead of other aspects of working with Tailwind (e.g. having to trim all the classes with automated scripts and so on).

Perhaps I am missing something here?

For each project, there's a unique balance between HTML, CSS, and the greater organization.

Consider a site that mostly renders Markdown or XML documents. Tailwind is probably the wrong choice. You have less control of the HTML content in this case, because it's generated. If you want to use Tailwind here, you'd need to make liberal use of Tailwind's @apply directive for basic declarations, which IMO is not the best expression of Tailwind usage. On the other hand, you have a lot of control over the CSS. It makes more sense to write the CSS directly.

Now consider an organization with many separate web properties, which all require consistent branding. The organization has a UI guy who creates universal stylesheets and components for use across sites. Here you have less control over the CSS, and more over the HTML. Tailwind makes more sense. You can add all the utility classes to HTML that you want, with few overrides or other enterprise pull-ups.

This latter scenario also highlights one of Tailwind's strengths. Tailwind limits your options. If you need to keep a brand consistent across a large number of properties, Tailwind keeps you in the guardrails of the style guide. I can't be the only one who's worked at an organization where there's supposed to be only one shade of blue to represent the brand, but you wind up finding 160 different shades of blue throughout the CSS.

Anyway, Tailwind has its time and place. I love it when it fits.

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