Tailwind reminds me why I'd rather go classless and then write a `custom.css` for anything not covered by semantic HTML.
Show HN: Tailwind Template Directory
51–60 of 81 posts
Re: Show HN: Tailwind Template Directory
#52I really was hoping that tailwind was a fad which died but like everything JavaScript it's here to stay sadly I recently found myself staring at a button element with more classes than I have ever seen like Click me! . It’s like the eccentric artist who insists on using every color in the palette. After been forced to use it for almost 2 years I still don't see the point. Your HTML files? Bloated. Your sanity? Questi…
The point is that it’s ridiculously fast to build and extremely easy to maintain. It’s also not hard to read after, idk, a week of working in it? The only people I’ve seen struggle beyond that are people who dug in their heels and dogmatically decided to struggle with it. FWIW for a Button, your engineer should just encapsulate all the “ridiculous” styling into a element.
After writing Tailwind for a few years, I've kinda shifted position on the maintainability of it.
It's definitely easier than any alternative, but it's also painful to read through a giant list of classes. There's no getting around that.
I think a better way to put it is that Tailwind optimizes for writes vs reads. It sacrifices the readability of HTML for the writability of CSS.
I still think that's a worthwhile tradeoff, but it's definitely a tradeoff.
Re: Show HN: Tailwind Template Directory
#53Locality of behavior, my precious.
Re: Show HN: Tailwind Template Directory
#54Aside from the Tailwind discussion: The site advertises FREE templates, I select a FREE template, but when I want to use it, I STILL have to pay. Huh?
Re: Show HN: Tailwind Template Directory
#55I really was hoping that tailwind was a fad which died but like everything JavaScript it's here to stay sadly I recently found myself staring at a button element with more classes than I have ever seen like Click me! . It’s like the eccentric artist who insists on using every color in the palette. After been forced to use it for almost 2 years I still don't see the point. Your HTML files? Bloated. Your sanity? Questi…
The point is that it’s ridiculously fast to build and extremely easy to maintain. It’s also not hard to read after, idk, a week of working in it? The only people I’ve seen struggle beyond that are people who dug in their heels and dogmatically decided to struggle with it. FWIW for a Button, your engineer should just encapsulate all the “ridiculous” styling into a element.
> FWIW for a Button, your engineer should just encapsulate all the “ridiculous” styling into a element.
Sure thing.
What I don't understand though is why not put a Button.css file next to the Button element file, and describe all the button styles in there. What's so hard about building or maintaining that?
Re: Show HN: Tailwind Template Directory
#56I really was hoping that tailwind was a fad which died but like everything JavaScript it's here to stay sadly I recently found myself staring at a button element with more classes than I have ever seen like Click me! . It’s like the eccentric artist who insists on using every color in the palette. After been forced to use it for almost 2 years I still don't see the point. Your HTML files? Bloated. Your sanity? Questi…
> I really was hoping that tailwind was a fad which died but like everything JavaScript it's here to stay sadly
I feel with Tailwind it's worse somehow.
At least heavy javascript frameworks are commonly ridiculed by back-end or full-stack developers here on HackerNews; but with Tailwind, they embraced it just as firmly as front-end developers have. It is common to hear from back-end or full-stack dev that all they need is just jQuery or plain vanilla; but far more rare to hear same sentiment expressed about plain old (or rather plain new) CSS.
Re: Show HN: Tailwind Template Directory
#57Earlier quoted context omitted.
The point is that it’s ridiculously fast to build and extremely easy to maintain. It’s also not hard to read after, idk, a week of working in it? The only people I’ve seen struggle beyond that are people who dug in their heels and dogmatically decided to struggle with it. FWIW for a Button, your engineer should just encapsulate all the “ridiculous” styling into a element.
> FWIW for a Button, your engineer should just encapsulate all the “ridiculous” styling into a element. Sure thing. What I don't understand though is why not put a Button.css file next to the Button element file, and describe all the button styles in there. What's so hard about building or maintaining that?
Soon after, you're going to need slightly adjust that button, you will add some helper classes. Then there will be a case when base style of that button doesn't work with new button style, and now you have 2 bases for a button. You might have semantically named those buttons, but 3 months later that no longer makes sense, and now you're afraid to rename it.
Tailwind lets you style elements in the same file as the element, you don't have to switch between `button.` and `button.css` to know what is going on.
nah, I love tailwindcss.
Re: Show HN: Tailwind Template Directory
#58Earlier quoted context omitted.
I strongly disagree on the maintainability. Mistakes are easy to make and have been made when comparing a list of 20 class names across a dozen elements. Its only "maintainable" if you ignore the class list when reading. I review my local evangelists' tailwind code and from their mistakes its clear they're not reading the class list. It reminds me of how some people claim they're great at multitasking and can text &…
I’ve experienced the exact same thing. Most TW evangelists I know are admittedly not that great at CSS. Those who are generally prefer a library like MUI instead, which offers the same maintainability benefits, a far more consistent UI, but with a higher learning curve.
> a far more consistent UI
That's what I like about tailwindcss - unlike MUI and co, it lets you follow sane design rules laid by tailwind and yet make the website look different from the rest.
Consistency of UI entirely depends on the user of tailwind.
Re: Show HN: Tailwind Template Directory
#59Earlier quoted context omitted.
The point is that it’s ridiculously fast to build and extremely easy to maintain. It’s also not hard to read after, idk, a week of working in it? The only people I’ve seen struggle beyond that are people who dug in their heels and dogmatically decided to struggle with it. FWIW for a Button, your engineer should just encapsulate all the “ridiculous” styling into a element.
> FWIW for a Button, your engineer should just encapsulate all the “ridiculous” styling into a element. Sure thing. What I don't understand though is why not put a Button.css file next to the Button element file, and describe all the button styles in there. What's so hard about building or maintaining that?
1 - It’s easy for style bugs to get introduced when someone updates the html and forgets the css.
2 - It’s simpler to have styles that depend on js vars/parameters when components handle their own styling.
Encapsulation, in other words.
Re: Show HN: Tailwind Template Directory
#60Earlier quoted context omitted.
So that’s a mid blue button that gets slightly darker on hover, with bold white text, it’s got a little more horizontal padding than vertical padding and has slight corner rounding and a slight drop shadow. And I can see all of that in context where the button is declared rather than having to go look at another file and see what everything is. Oh and I know that none of those TW classes conflict or over write any pr…
Good luck changing the style site-wide.
If you need to change a style site-wide you shouldn't be using individual tw classes. Don't blame the tool for shoddy workmanship, etc.