Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Tailwind and regular CSS are hardly distinct, it's just slightly different names Tailwind: CSS: div { box-shadow: 0 10px 15px -3px rgb(0 0 0 / 0.1), 0 4px 6px -4px rgb(0 0 0 / 0.1); } Not to mention the Tailwind classNames are compiled to CSS in a build step, where CSS is not compiled, it's written in its native form. They're clearly very different syntaxes and approaches, even though one compiles to the other. The…
That's a very extreme example, and yes, I would just use the bracket syntax in Tailwind because I can see clearly that's not what I want for box-shadow. If I didn't know how box shadow worked, Tailwind made it easier for me to decide by having defaults in the docs that map to the actual CSS.
It's not very extreme, it's literally any time you deviate from their prefab - so any truly custom UI. The size of shadow (corner radius, font-size, etc.) at different steps are hard-coded in Tailwind, if you want something else that's up to you. In terms of colors (text, background, etc.) they have a default palette, colors like "slate", etc. but anything else is up to you. So - most brands.
> Tailwind makes box shadow easier
Easier sure: What it does is give you the abstractions "shadow-sm", "shadow-lg", "shadow-none", etc. in fact a total of SEVEN options for shadows.
That teaches you something - how to apply up to seven types of shadows! But you would be a lot more powerful of a developer if you knew how to do more than that. This doesn't teach you a foundation for understanding box-shadow or learning anything more - I think your point about learning is not valid.
I learned CSS in 2003 from Myspace profiles and Dreamweaver - visual IDEs are great for education, so don't get me wrong here, I'm a believer in what I think you're getting at, but Tailwind aint it (for that).