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Comment by deergomoo | Hacker News Reader

> The more features that get added to Tailwind, the more you have to know about CSS before you can use those features. Right? So why not just bite the bullet and learn to use CSS without the additional tooling […] that Tailwind and other utility-first styling frameworks require?

This is an incredibly silly argument because Tailwind has always required you know CSS, or at least understand how it works. The selling point of Tailwind is a more convenient and co-located way to write styles—the utility classes map pretty much 1:1 to CSS properties after all.

Covering more CSS features with Tailwind classes does not make Tailwind inherently more complicated, it just adds a way to express more CSS that you need already know about.

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But tailwind fans keep saying that you don't need to learn css. Even in the comments here, people have said they use tailwind so they don't have to learn css because they're not a designer.

Also the biggest reason to use tailwind is apparently because naming css classes is hard...

I can't speak for others but I'd imagine you are talking about two different things. There's "learning css" in the sense of learning all the syntax & semantics. Tailwind does not help you here at all. Then there is "learning css" in the sense of using it decently. Meaning proper spacing of elements, good typography, etc.. A design system if you will. This is where tailwind steps in by providing very reasonable defaults for a lot of things.

The advantage of tailwind over a full design system is that it is piecemeal, you only pay for what you use. It really makes a lot of sense when combined with a component system like React because you get re-usability at the component level instead of the style level. I like this a lot, but it may not resonate with everyone.

I think they're referring to my comment and yes your interpretation is what I intended to communicate.

Give me a picture of a dream website and I can easily write all the CSS and HTML to create it identically and responsively as I have done for years.

But give some general product description, and no amount of CSS knowledge will save the monstrosity I create

Oh, the design system aspect of tailwind is GREAT.

The idea of utility classes is super helpful.

I was actually pretty into tailwind at first for these reasons.

There were some issues, most of which were fixed with the JIT.

That said, most of the hate for tailwind is due to the 'community'. People saying to just take the best parts are the minority of opinions you see on tailwind.

There’s “not learning CSS - the syntax” and “not learning CSS - the tooling”. Tailwind helps with the latter.

CSS doesn't need tooling though? It just works in the browser.

SASS and SCSS perhaps

Just like CPUs don't need tooling - you simply write some Assembler to execute on them.

I find organising CSS files to be pretty hard, and I've been using it since 2001, predominantly as a backend dev who needed to churn out a decent enough front end. Tools like Compass, SASS, Bootstrap, LESS have helped with all of that. Tailwind is the best integrated version of all that tooling that I've worked with.

Ironically, assembly needs tooling...

This is a genuine question: are Tailwind fans really saying you don't need to learn CSS? I'm a huge Tailwind fan and I've not seen people say that. I actually don't even know _how_ you could use Tailwind without knowing CSS!

If you just copy the utility classes (for example from tailwind ui) and don't touch the css file, you get what you see in a reliable fashion. I guess that might qualify as working without knowing CSS for some, in the crudest way possible.

It's not hard to use tailwind without knowing css. Google answers your question 90% of the time. The other 10% you read about the appropriate css and then translate that to tailwind.

I think everyone using tailwind probably 'knows css', they've used it, they can test stuff in chrome via inspect, and they know the basics. Most do not know flexbox inside and out, or every different ways to make grids, etc.

Personally, I usually just look through component sites for something like I want, then modify it to my needs. 95% that works, sometimes I go build it out myself.

I'm fullstack, but more backend and that's where I'm most comfortable so the less I worry about design the better it is for my sanity, except I do like dabbling w/ the js layer in vue, alpine, or react.

Yes, all over twitter. Especially on negative or even 'tailwind i cool but not for everyone' posts

I spend a disproportionately high amount of time on Twitter and haven't ever seen that. Very strange!

All arguments I've seen are about consistency and maintainability.

Appeal to social media argument.

OT: I often see someone make a dubious claim, someone else asks for proof, and they say "that's what I keep hearing on Twitter."

It's just another logical fallacy, especially since Twitter is known for bad and hot takes.

It doesn't support your argument the fact that you heard a random person on social media say something dubious.

/rant

There's layers to 'knowing css'. There's I've been working w/ it for 20 years, but can I create flexboxes without google? nope. Do I learn every new feature/nuance? probably not.

It's like you can know how to unclog a toilet or change a faucet, you're no plumber, you don't know what a plumber does, but you can do enough for 80% of your needs, and when you can't you either call the plumber or you pick up a plumbing book or go to google/youtube.

I don't think you need to be a CSS expert to use tailwind, that's why I stuck w/ bootstrap for so long, but I also think you need to maybe think more about the underlying css so at least be willing to keep more CSS knowledge in your RAM or SwapFile in your brain, but there's things like daisy-ui that sort of wrap TW in bootstrap like niceties so you can kind of have both worlds, and come with nice themes to boot.

I'm a Tailwind fan. I love it not because I don't know CSS, but because I'm not very good at using it. Tailwind is easier to use than CSS for knocking up a quick site.

What the tailwind model does is having you not think of selectors or the cascade most of the time. I don't know what that would have to do with being a designer or why naming css classes should be harder than naming any other kind of class.

I also think the listed sentiments would not be strongly reflected in actual tailwind dev polls.

I probably going to get quartered here but I am one of those users. I have basic understanding of css, but prefer to use Tailwind because I can't be arsed to write css. I detest css and consider the worst part of web dev.

I don't think people who made css were webdevs at heart but typographists or artists, and as a result css feel unnecessary convoluted.

I know plenty of CSS, and the more I know, the gladder I am to use Tailwind to express it.

It's nice that some folks are using Tailwind to shortcut a need for more comprehensive learning, but let's not misrepresent that for one moment as being a fundamental purpose. The organising principle of Tailwind is to refactor styles at the abstraction level of on-page components, not supplying an off-the-shelf design system for front-end novices a la bootstrap/material design.

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