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Comment by k4runa | Hacker News Reader

I find Tailwind really good for prototyping designs and iterating quickly, and as the design becomes more crystallised then I moved to semantic css and start to clean up the complexity. Once I've figure out that patterns and components required...

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I’ve found myself wanting a Tailwind compiler that makes it easier to work like this. Iterate fast with maximum verbosity, but later extract common patterns to classes when things are more stable. Anyone aware of any tooling like this?

That would be nice, like a Webstorm / editor feature that detects when you re-use code and recommends abstracting it. I would love that to be able to detect that like "Hey these buttons all share these features, let's refactor it for you"

I love that idea, and would definitely use it.

In fact, if there's enough interest, I'd probably build it too...

Go for it! At the very least there are some interesting algorithmic problems in there. I was leaning towards calling it "Leaf Blower", because it's a form of wind that tidies things up. Take it or leave it. :P

But who really work like this? The most people and company would not do this extra work and use tailwind for finished products too.

I figure most startups would build an MVP in two weeks and then rebuilt it later or move onto the next version and clean it up a bit in each version that follows.

Never change a running system. If you create a working project, you will not change it, especially a startup.

Possible on a later bigger update (if necessary), a complete app would be rebuild. But here is the same problem: why should you do it, if your project works?

I personally had not seen such an update in early stage of a startup. Did somebody have insights or examples?

Agreed, even if you do a rewrite - you'd still want to use tailwind so you can re-use some of the elements you already built

To me you are adding complexity. Back to finding which styles are cascading over another.

Tailwind is somewhat like lisp in the aspect that people usually don't get what all the hoopla is about. All they see is parenthesis and want a "lisp" without the parenthesis once they figure out polish notation

Makes perfect sense. Prototypes are all about doing something very fast and all hacks allowed. Cleanup later.

Yeah, cause I end up with like 5 different buttons designs using Tailwind, and they all have different classes but when I clean up the code later I reduce it down to one button design that fits the final theme.

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