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Comment by grsmvg | Hacker News Reader

As a 26+ year frontender, years ago I was against it on so many levels. Until I tried it.

Never looked back. Also, inheriting projects with someone else’s code is fine. Just a quick look at the central config and you’re good to go.

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Tailwind looks bad on "paper". It violates a lot of "best practices". It is ugly. Yet in reality it works. It gets the job done. It is fast to work with.

Constraints are known to enhance creativity.

IMO this is one of those things where theory meets practice. Theoretical coders (i.e. those who love the code itself, rather than how well it works for the end user) tend to hate on Tailwind, while those who prioritize end user value over code perfection tend to like Tailwind.

Semantic CSS is Java AbstractBeanFactoryBuilder. Or as Steve Yegge put it, Kingdom of Nouns.

Tailwind CSS is Python dictionaries where you don't create one user-order-deliver-date CSS class for every Noun you have.

My constraint is "use vanilla CSS" ;) I made a huge solo project in tailwind. Never again. Vanilla CSS is perfectly fine for my own uses. In fact, I've gone a whole 'no classes' style and used as much semantic HTML and modern CSS and can get extremely far. No more looking into the tailwind docs to learn its syntax on a modern vanilla CSS feature that I've been waiting for.

Totally agree. It does break the rules, but it feels so much faster than defining class names.

On simple projects I usually @apply tailwind styles to standard elements like headings, block quote, aside, nav etc. Then just use semantic html.

Looks good and takes so little effort.

Tailwind is like Air Fryers in that way. I have been cooking for decades. I have a convection oven. Air Fryer is just an undersized version of one. But then you try one, and it turns out they are amazing.

I felt the same way with JSX. Started using it and don't want to look back. Same with Tailwind.

100% this. It looks terrible until you try it and it starts making so much sense.

Also works great with agent assisted development.

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