Live data from Hacker News

Show HN: Blunt – A CSS Layout Framework for Minimalists

github.com

1–10 of 76 posts

Re: Show HN: Blunt – A CSS Layout Framework for Minimalists

#3
I did tons of web pre-CSS days (all my layouts were tables :-D) and have (clearly) been out of the scene for a long time other than the occasional CSS hacking when there wasn't enough backend/infrastructure work to fill the sprint.

I understand the theory behind CSS, but suck at the practice (for now). I've figured out how to do simple layout with divs, but I still suck at making it responsive to screen size changes.

Is something like Blunt for me? Or should I invest in something heavier like Bootstrap? I don't want my page to look like "just another bootstrap page" but I also won't be able to make it look good unless I have training wheels on. I revere the "Arch way" but recognize it won't always yield the best fruit if the farmer doesn't know what they are doing. I tend to value elegance/simplicity over speed.

Re: Show HN: Blunt – A CSS Layout Framework for Minimalists

#4
post #2

Can someone comment on Blunt vs. Tailwind?

With a quick glance it looks like Blunt has fewer classes. It seems to be more of a utility + whatever-css-method you choose, e.g.BEM.

Blunt has utilities for margin, padding, height, width, font size, line height, grid and classes for row, column and some text alignment utilities.

Tailwind includes border, font color, transitions, background color, etc.

I'm using Tailwind on a project right now. My first one. I like it. But the big appeal to me is using the same classes on all of my projects. It's less cognitive overhead than coming up with names, dealing with scope creep on classes, etc.

That said, a buddy of mine that is a much better web developer than I uses Sass to make base utility classes and a BEM like approach for the rest.

Re: Show HN: Blunt – A CSS Layout Framework for Minimalists

#6

I did tons of web pre-CSS days (all my layouts were tables :-D) and have (clearly) been out of the scene for a long time other than the occasional CSS hacking when there wasn't enough backend/infrastructure work to fill the sprint. I understand the theory behind CSS, but suck at the practice (for now). I've figured out how to do simple layout with divs, but I still suck at making it responsive to screen size changes.…

Unlearning is harder than learning; highest possible recommendation to start here: https://every-layout.dev and get it right. You'll leapfrog 98% of FE "specialists" and 99.999% of "full-stack" devs.

Re: Show HN: Blunt – A CSS Layout Framework for Minimalists

#7

I did tons of web pre-CSS days (all my layouts were tables :-D) and have (clearly) been out of the scene for a long time other than the occasional CSS hacking when there wasn't enough backend/infrastructure work to fill the sprint. I understand the theory behind CSS, but suck at the practice (for now). I've figured out how to do simple layout with divs, but I still suck at making it responsive to screen size changes.…

from a quick look, Blunt is mostly a (big) bunch of helpers for commonly used stuff like "lay the children out horizontally". i'm not sure if it'll be helpful if you're not very familiar with CSS – it seems to be aimed towards people who know what to write, but just don't feel like typing "margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" a zillionth time :)

if you're not interested in designing your whole site's look & feel from the ground up, sth like Bootstrap or some minimal theme (bunch of those on HN recently) would probably be better. using a simple theme as a starting point and tweaking it to your liking might be the way to go

Re: Show HN: Blunt – A CSS Layout Framework for Minimalists

#8

I use Tachyons ( https://tachyons.io/ ) whenever I can, for achieving this purpose. It seems the scope is overlapping, and tachyons is a little more mature: https://tachyons-tldr.now.sh/ .

I love Tachyons, it was the first CSS library/tool that helped me feel comfortable tackling designing good looking pages.

I think its a great tool for someone not comfortable in the space. As you use it more and more you get a good understanding of what the properties are (using margins, paddings, headers, centering text, etc) + couple that with the VSCode plugin, it gives you the real css snippets for what the properties mean. Then over time you start to understand what properties make your html look that way, and then get comfortable writing css from scratch.

+1 Tachyons

Re: Show HN: Blunt – A CSS Layout Framework for Minimalists

#9
post #2

Can someone comment on Blunt vs. Tailwind?

Blunt looks like a simpler defined framework for styles. Tailwind is a utility framework for your styles. With Tailwind, I can do pretty much everything withotu having to write the "default" styles which I already know but don't want to.

Depending on my needs, team-size and flexibility, I can set Tailwind to be used without ever writing a single line of CSS or use it to define my custom classes.

E.g. of a recent project https://github.com/sagri/sagri.co

Re: Show HN: Blunt – A CSS Layout Framework for Minimalists

#10
> There seem to be hundreds of these things out there. So why bother with another one? Well, I was sick of fighting with the other options. Most are overly opinionated and result in spending time fighting the framework instead of it boosting productivity. I have tried so many different ones. Some do too much, others do too little. I needed some middle ground that worked for specifically what I wanted.

It genuinely doesn't feel like this boilerplate sentiment is ever necessary, but it seems to wind up in so many of these types of projects.

We get it, nobody who writes a CSS framework likes any other CSS framework enough to use it. If they did, this new framework wouldn't exist.

But it's a bad first impression to put an aimless rant the top of the readme of a project you're showing off, instead of talking about what makes this project unique, because there _never_ seems to be a good-enough reason to take a swipe at other people's work — especially when someone will inevitably start writing a CSS framework after liking 90% of Blunt but bouncing off one or two things Blunt intentionally does or doesn't do.

I can imagine maybe thinking it's relatable in some way, but to me, every time and without fail, it just poisons my sentiment before I've even looked at the implementation.

Post reply on HN