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Tailwind CSS v4.0

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Re: Tailwind CSS v4.0

#231

Post by twelve40 »

asimpletune wrote: post #144

I used tailwind for my site and ended up liking it a lot, but maybe for reasons that are not often mentioned? The real value of tailwind is being able to read all the styles that affect a an element in one place. Sure the classnames can get long, but it’s still a lot faster to read that long line, than open the browser tools each time or scroll up and down one (or many) stylesheets. Then when you come back to that co…

> real value of tailwind is being able to read all the styles that affect a an element in one place

there are helpers for that in the IDE (e.g., "Show Applied Styles for Tag" in Intellij) or even in chrome dev tools that show all this in a readable way. Tailwind snippets mentioned in this HN topic look kind of scary in comparison.

Re: Tailwind CSS v4.0

#232

Post by d1sxeyes »

threatofrain wrote: post #227
d1sxeyes wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No one cares what your typography ratio is if you can’t get it in front of a user quickly enough (dead code elimination), reliably enough (type safe), or cost effectively enough (i.e. if you have to pay for more developer time to implement the same work). Tailwind is a tool for craftspeople, not artists. It democratises design by making it simpler. For folks that are really good designers, they should be happy that t…

Tailwind does not democratize design. Tailwind is generally 1:1 to CSS, sometimes 1:2 or 1:3. It's such a thin layer over CSS that you have to remember all the CSS. That does not make design easy or hard. You don't give people Tailwind and end up with design as beautiful as ShadCN, even though ShadCN in some perspective is just another wave of stereotypical startup design. The ability to go from blank button to beaut…

I don’t really agree. You have curated colour palettes, so if you want a red, you’ve got red-50 to red-950, rather than an entire RGB colour space.

Similarly for font sizes, you don’t have to decide on a pixel size, just whether it’s small, large, extra large, etc. Border radii. Border widths. Padding.

There are lots of “sensible” defaults so you don’t have to pick even the units (should I use px or pt or em or rem or vw or ch or…) before we even talk about the numbers associated with those units.

Re: Tailwind CSS v4.0

#233

Post by xutopia »

Anyone who has ever had to deal with CSS over time knows that the biggest issue is having leftover classes. Utility first approach means this never happens.

Re: Tailwind CSS v4.0

#234

Post by sureglymop »

I think the reason why tailwind is as popular as it is, is because it really ties in with the "change something, save, then immediately see the result" loop and dx of modern day web development.

Yes, this works with regular css too but it's the fact that you can do bigger changes inline quickly without making up a class (and god forbid you already have a different class affecting the same element and it gets hairy). Personally I think this is nice, it's great to immediately see results and then adjust. But dx is not the only thing that matters and there are tradeoffs too. Personally I would use tailwind for personal projects but I don't think I would try to introduce it at work.

Re: Tailwind CSS v4.0

#235

Post by Spone »

4m1rk wrote: post #85
jaredcwhite wrote: post #39

As a once-strident critic of Tailwind for its many failings and incompatibilities with the state of the actually-modern "vanilla" web art, I am very pleased to see the huge strides they've made with v4. Being able to access the Tailwind theme through native CSS variables (they even have an example in the docs of a button component written in native CSS in an external stylesheet using native variables! Oh happy day!)…

I just want the color palette of the Tailwind CSS.

Radix Colors ?

Re: Tailwind CSS v4.0

#236

Post by [deleted] »

d1sxeyes wrote: post #232
threatofrain wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tailwind does not democratize design. Tailwind is generally 1:1 to CSS, sometimes 1:2 or 1:3. It's such a thin layer over CSS that you have to remember all the CSS. That does not make design easy or hard. You don't give people Tailwind and end up with design as beautiful as ShadCN, even though ShadCN in some perspective is just another wave of stereotypical startup design. The ability to go from blank button to beaut…

I don’t really agree. You have curated colour palettes, so if you want a red, you’ve got red-50 to red-950, rather than an entire RGB colour space. Similarly for font sizes, you don’t have to decide on a pixel size, just whether it’s small, large, extra large, etc. Border radii. Border widths. Padding. There are lots of “sensible” defaults so you don’t have to pick even the units (should I use px or pt or em or rem o…

[deleted]

Re: Tailwind CSS v4.0

#237

Post by bythreads »

sibeliuss wrote: post #86
jaredcwhite wrote: post #39

As a once-strident critic of Tailwind for its many failings and incompatibilities with the state of the actually-modern "vanilla" web art, I am very pleased to see the huge strides they've made with v4. Being able to access the Tailwind theme through native CSS variables (they even have an example in the docs of a button component written in native CSS in an external stylesheet using native variables! Oh happy day!)…

I'm still a critic in terms of actually using it, but what I find amazing about tailwind is how amenable it is to AI-generated workflows. It seriously works _so good_. Anything can be expressed, and systematically. There's something amazingly useful there.

Its horrible, annoying and gets in the way

Re: Tailwind CSS v4.0

#238

Post by bythreads »

d1sxeyes wrote: post #232
threatofrain wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tailwind does not democratize design. Tailwind is generally 1:1 to CSS, sometimes 1:2 or 1:3. It's such a thin layer over CSS that you have to remember all the CSS. That does not make design easy or hard. You don't give people Tailwind and end up with design as beautiful as ShadCN, even though ShadCN in some perspective is just another wave of stereotypical startup design. The ability to go from blank button to beaut…

I don’t really agree. You have curated colour palettes, so if you want a red, you’ve got red-50 to red-950, rather than an entire RGB colour space. Similarly for font sizes, you don’t have to decide on a pixel size, just whether it’s small, large, extra large, etc. Border radii. Border widths. Padding. There are lots of “sensible” defaults so you don’t have to pick even the units (should I use px or pt or em or rem o…

You should really not do it like that,

--corporate-main-primary, secondary etc

Then map that to red-50 if you really want to.

but a design lives in cmyk/ral/rgb/hex not red-650

The go

--action-button-cta-hover etc that could map to corp primary or some other stuff

Re: Tailwind CSS v4.0

#239

Post by bythreads »

sureglymop wrote: post #234

I think the reason why tailwind is as popular as it is, is because it really ties in with the "change something, save, then immediately see the result" loop and dx of modern day web development. Yes, this works with regular css too but it's the fact that you can do bigger changes inline quickly without making up a class (and god forbid you already have a different class affecting the same element and it gets hairy).…

And thereby you kill all inheritance, that is the while point of css.

I find it more magic to change a single class at root and have the entire design reflow (on purpose) -

Its beautifull when combined with shadowdom and wc

Re: Tailwind CSS v4.0

#240

Post by threatofrain »

brightball wrote: post #185
tipiirai wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a designer, so I absolutely think in terms of design systems where typography is just one part of the puzzle. There are, of course, many ways to set type — but the point was: no Tailwind engineer talks about typographic scales in the first place. Systematic thinking is absent, which is naturally built in CSS.

Tailwind itself is a design system. The authors actually put together a short book explaining their point of view on design systems (without referencing Tailwind) and I found it very difficult to argue with any of their points. Then you look at Tailwind and realize it’s almost entirely that book packaged for others to use. https://www.refactoringui.com/

The Tailwind library names grades of colors and sizes for you, but the book is ultimately about iterating design so that you can create your own design system. From the perspective of the book, the Tailwind defaults are inadequate as a design system.
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