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Bullet Train – Rails-based SaaS framework

bullettrain.co

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Re: Bullet Train – Rails-based SaaS framework

#91

Post by skinkestek »

ecshafer wrote: post #76
skinkestek wrote: post #61

This might be a good place for a Java programmer to say thank you to the Rails community for your relentless mocking of Spring and Enterprise Java back in the days. Java is wonderful these days, and seriously I think you guys are a one of the major reasons why Java is so great today.

Spring is still awful. Play, Javalin, and other frameworks are leagues better. Even Spring boot isn't a great framework which has way too much annotation soup. Worst thing with Spring/Spring Boot is that the framework and ecosystem breaks extremely often with updates.

I use Quarkus these days which means the IDE support and ecosystem of Java, the very simple annotation rules from JavaEE, and reload times like PHP.

Re: Bullet Train – Rails-based SaaS framework

#92

Post by akio »

nawgz wrote: post #70
thih9 wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> ironically, I question that your definition of "real project" even included a team with design chops “No, you have never worked on a real project!” :) Both can be real projects, without quotation marks. I’m constantly surprised that there are so many different ways and processes to build a website; and people who think theirs is the best.

Indeed, personally I would never open a conversation with that, but I believe this is someone gussying up their personal hobby project where they learned how to use a CSS framework into a "real project" while they denigrate someone else. If we're going to discard some projects as real, a pretty easy filter is "were multiple people required to build it". People who need Tailwind to provide their design system like Tai…

> I question that your definition of "real project" even included a team with design chops.

Do you believe that

The New York Times (2023): https://tailwindcss.com/showcase/nytimes

Shopify (2023): https://tailwindcss.com/showcase/shopify

OpenAI (2023): https://tailwindcss.com/showcase/openai

GitHub (2022): https://tailwindcss.com/showcase/github

The Verge (2022): https://tailwindcss.com/showcase/the-verge

Google (2022): https://tailwindcss.com/showcase/google-io-2022

Microsoft (2022): https://tailwindcss.com/showcase/dotnet

Netflix (2022): https://tailwindcss.com/showcase/netflix

Mashable (2022): https://tailwindcss.com/showcase/mashable

don't have teams with "design chops"?

----

Anecdotally, I can tell you that Tailwind is heavily favored by shiny designery startups. Many of the best designed websites these days are built with Tailwind, and design-oriented engineers are reaching for it first.

Back in 2018 I was arguing against utility classes and vetoing their use in projects I was involved with in favor of thoughtfully architected SCSS. By now in 2023 it's clear Tailwind has earned its place in high-end UI development.

Re: Bullet Train – Rails-based SaaS framework

#93

Post by michaelbuckbee »

aculver wrote: post #40

Wow, hi everyone! Was just about to walk over for the first day of RailsConf when a friend let me know we were #1 here! Honored! I'm the original creator of Bullet Train, although a number of people now work on it. It's been a fun journey to this point! When I first started building Bullet Train, it was a relatively unique offering. There weren't that many full-featured "SaaS starter kits" out there, although there w…

I was privileged enough to attend Andrew's LA RailsSaas conference and it was outstanding.

If you're in the EU running a SaaS or developing with Rails you should at the very least check out his upcoming one in Greece.

Re: Bullet Train – Rails-based SaaS framework

#94

Post by danjac »

nawgz wrote: post #66
jonwinstanley wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you tried it on a real project? Tailwind is a huge time saver when compared to traditional CSS or SASS.

What I really think you're saying is that Tailwind is a huge time saver when it comes to design, and compared to your past experiences translating designs to CSS it felt like a net win. A lot of people disagree with Tailwind's design philosophy on both the developer and consumer side of the code (i.e. DX and UI), so it's questionable what "real project" and "time saver" really mean; ironically, I question that your d…

I like Tailwind, but I like it precisely as a non-frontend person working on side projects: it lets me iterate quickly without a deep knowledge of CSS (while at the same time providing an introduction to modern CSS).

I can see how that would also be a benefit to a "SAAS starter pack" where you have a small team wearing many hats, probably people with a familiarity with CSS but not experts. The code base in these early stage startups and side projects is going to be small and you want to move quickly. Tailwind is great at that.

However if you have a frontend team of CSS experts to draw upon, the benefits of Tailwind are fewer and the downsides are greater - your CSS people will not enjoy having your classes named things like "px-2 py-1 rounded border bg-blue-800 text-white font-bold hover:bg-blue-500" rather than just "btn btn-primary". They can iterate fast anyway and they will probably leave more maintainable HTML and CSS/SCSS in the long run.

However I'd still be interested if any large teams (with correspondingly large code bases) have made Tailwind work for them.

Re: Bullet Train – Rails-based SaaS framework

#96

Post by nawgz »

akio wrote: post #92
nawgz wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed, personally I would never open a conversation with that, but I believe this is someone gussying up their personal hobby project where they learned how to use a CSS framework into a "real project" while they denigrate someone else. If we're going to discard some projects as real, a pretty easy filter is "were multiple people required to build it". People who need Tailwind to provide their design system like Tai…

> I question that your definition of "real project" even included a team with design chops. Do you believe that The New York Times (2023): https://tailwindcss.com/showcase/nytimes Shopify (2023): https://tailwindcss.com/showcase/shopify OpenAI (2023): https://tailwindcss.com/showcase/openai GitHub (2022): https://tailwindcss.com/showcase/github The Verge (2022): https://tailwindcss.com/showcase/the-verge Google (2022…

Nice list. Did you actually look at those sites?

Your first example implies "The New York Times" uses Tailwind. Besides that being hilarious, you click the link and immediately see there is a big subheading "Events"

I have never heard of NYT "Events", so I checked out their page:

https://www.nytimes.com/events

> Do you believe that [The New York Times Events doesn't] have teams with "design chops"?

Yes, yes I do.

Not really going to bother with the rest, you're joking if you think these top corps meaningfully rely on this 2-year-old CSS framework. I exactly believe that you're linking me to things thrown together quickly by a resource-strapped team, the "Events" example merely affirmed it

Edit: I sort of bothered

* GitHub Next - splash page

* Shopify - marketing page

* Google IO - marketing page

* Microsoft .NET - marketing page

* Netflix Global Top 10 - marketing page

* New York Times Events - extremely basic

* OpenAI - Attention grabber, but... the homepage didn't even use full width of nor center content in my 1440p display. Not exactly a UI-driven success

* Mashable, The Verge - Pretty bad websites.

This is my point. People use Tailwind to slap together something good looking and simple. They don't use it to build applications because you make your own design system for applications.

Re: Bullet Train – Rails-based SaaS framework

#97

Post by DANmode »

thih9 wrote: post #68
nawgz wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What I really think you're saying is that Tailwind is a huge time saver when it comes to design, and compared to your past experiences translating designs to CSS it felt like a net win. A lot of people disagree with Tailwind's design philosophy on both the developer and consumer side of the code (i.e. DX and UI), so it's questionable what "real project" and "time saver" really mean; ironically, I question that your d…

> ironically, I question that your definition of "real project" even included a team with design chops “No, you have never worked on a real project!” :) Both can be real projects, without quotation marks. I’m constantly surprised that there are so many different ways and processes to build a website; and people who think theirs is the best.

Many believe there is a direct choice between best tool for a type of job, and a best tool for a type of person.

The right path is having tools the team is currently, or will be productive with, and isn't the markedly wrong tool for a type of job.

Re: Bullet Train – Rails-based SaaS framework

#98

Post by skinkestek »

brightball wrote: post #82
skinkestek wrote: post #61

This might be a good place for a Java programmer to say thank you to the Rails community for your relentless mocking of Spring and Enterprise Java back in the days. Java is wonderful these days, and seriously I think you guys are a one of the major reasons why Java is so great today.

And honestly, with jRuby there’s no reason you can’t just jump in this pool.

I like the Java and Kotlin languages and that I can get world class IDE support for them.

Re: Bullet Train – Rails-based SaaS framework

#99

Post by Alifatisk »

aculver wrote: post #83
Alifatisk wrote: post #58

Is this the competitor to https://avohq.io ?

Not at all! You can use Bullet Train and Avo together or you can use them independently. Avo is the recommended admin library to use with Bullet Train.

Oh okey, that's clears it up for me!

Re: Bullet Train – Rails-based SaaS framework

#100

Post by akio »

nawgz wrote: post #96
akio wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I question that your definition of "real project" even included a team with design chops. Do you believe that The New York Times (2023): https://tailwindcss.com/showcase/nytimes Shopify (2023): https://tailwindcss.com/showcase/shopify OpenAI (2023): https://tailwindcss.com/showcase/openai GitHub (2022): https://tailwindcss.com/showcase/github The Verge (2022): https://tailwindcss.com/showcase/the-verge Google (2022…

Nice list. Did you actually look at those sites? Your first example implies "The New York Times" uses Tailwind. Besides that being hilarious, you click the link and immediately see there is a big subheading "Events" I have never heard of NYT "Events", so I checked out their page: https://www.nytimes.com/events > Do you believe that [The New York Times Events doesn't] have teams with "design chops"? Yes, yes I do. Not…

> They don't use it to build applications because you make your own design system for applications.

Some examples of SaaS companies that use Tailwind on the application side are PlanetScale, Fly.io, Lemon Squeezy, and Supabase.

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