Classes are attributes of html elements. Tailwind classes are not html elements like font or center, so you can't compare them like you do. I don't think many front end developers are building pure html and alongside css elements. Who does that anyway? 'Components' in whatever framework you use, that include encapsulated styles, is the future an the way to go nowadays. Personally also not a fan of Tailwind but classes are still part of common html sematics.
Everybody for the last 20 years or so? …until people started reinventing inline-styles with "utility" css frameworks (the whole idea of "css frameworks" is…)
Sorry if my post was not clear enough. I am not against using classes, I am against using presentation classes. I prefer "navbar", "features", "testimonials" over "bg:blue", "text-center". The markup should not contain information about how something looks.
Sure, Tailwind provides classes, not tags. But, be it a presentation class like "text-center" or a <center> tag, I think neither is acceptable or semantic.
Let's agree that "Who does that anyway?" is not a very good justification against doing it.
Using frameworks is not the only way to create websites. What happened to Vanilla JS? Almost everyone today creates websites using frameworks and component libraries. I don't think this is the way to go, though I understand why and how we got there. Honestly, this can be a topic for another article.
Yes, Javascript frameworks are not the only way to build websites, but they are the best way right now. Tailwind isn't being marketed to individuals building straight vanilla html/css/js sites, it's more for those where functionality takes center stage over styling than anything. Being ignorant to the way new web technologies and practices are evolving is only going to hurt your future projects and skill set down the line.
I've been and still am using those frameworks while working on multiple enterprise projects. I've experienced both pros and cons of those. I'm well aware of current trends, I've been closely observing the evolution of the web development, tools and methods for more than 5 years.
If you think this post is intended to just trash current tools and technologies, read again. While highlighting the weak points of a popular tool, this post is about wondering if there's a better way, and pushing innovation in the right direction while preserving established best practices. The intention is far from being ignorant. On the contrary, it's about caring enough to attempt improving what we already have today.
Without any doubt, how we're creating websites today is sub-optimal at best. Huge bundle sizes, millions of tools and dependencies, slow, not-accessible, unmaintainable websites. And the list goes on.
If you consider yourself a decent software engineer and take pride in being one, you should try to be professional enough to create quality products. But that's my take on the matter. Ultimately, it's just a matter of priorities. If you're just focused on making money, moving up the career chain, or surviving given the current state of the software engineering world, this discussion is pointless.
Either way, I wish you success, and I hope someday you will join me in an attempt to improve and perfect the technology, which will lead to the creation of amazing, performant and accessible products, the better web.
I don't think you really have a good view on how we noways should build good, nice, userfriendly and dev maintainable websites. Bundle sizes exceed but we also have more bandwith, faster devices an we need to add lots of features to compete with the competition. It is just how it works. But if you see unmaintainable websites using modern technologies than you are doing it completely wrong. In my 20 year web dev experience I watched us fighting various browser related issues (IE) and trying to get things work cross browser just by using lots of old hacks. I'm glad those days are mostly over because of our new much improved set of tools all self respecting developer should use today.
I agree on most parts, maybe I don't understand the difference between classes and presentation classes. I'm sure all classes are meant for presentation. But how Tailwind let's you add lots and lots of separate classes for displaying 1 html component is mostly very confusing an time consuming while fixing issues with styling. And it makes the pure html harder to read.
I try to stay away from 'Vannilla JS' written websites because nowadays using reactive frameworks, typescript, reusable components, scss makes my work a lot easier, less buggier, and takes much less time to build. Great article btw 👍
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Classes are attributes of html elements. Tailwind classes are not html elements like font or center, so you can't compare them like you do. I don't think many front end developers are building pure html and alongside css elements. Who does that anyway? 'Components' in whatever framework you use, that include encapsulated styles, is the future an the way to go nowadays. Personally also not a fan of Tailwind but classes are still part of common html sematics.
Yes. Of HTML semantics. i.e. The meaning of the content. Presentation information should not appear in HTML classes.
According to who, exactly?
Everybody for the last 20 years or so? …until people started reinventing inline-styles with "utility" css frameworks (the whole idea of "css frameworks" is…)
Sorry if my post was not clear enough. I am not against using classes, I am against using presentation classes. I prefer "navbar", "features", "testimonials" over "bg:blue", "text-center". The markup should not contain information about how something looks.
Sure, Tailwind provides classes, not tags. But, be it a presentation class like "text-center" or a
<center>tag, I think neither is acceptable or semantic.Let's agree that "Who does that anyway?" is not a very good justification against doing it.
Using frameworks is not the only way to create websites. What happened to Vanilla JS? Almost everyone today creates websites using frameworks and component libraries. I don't think this is the way to go, though I understand why and how we got there. Honestly, this can be a topic for another article.
Yes, Javascript frameworks are not the only way to build websites, but they are the best way right now. Tailwind isn't being marketed to individuals building straight vanilla html/css/js sites, it's more for those where functionality takes center stage over styling than anything. Being ignorant to the way new web technologies and practices are evolving is only going to hurt your future projects and skill set down the line.
I've been and still am using those frameworks while working on multiple enterprise projects. I've experienced both pros and cons of those. I'm well aware of current trends, I've been closely observing the evolution of the web development, tools and methods for more than 5 years.
If you think this post is intended to just trash current tools and technologies, read again. While highlighting the weak points of a popular tool, this post is about wondering if there's a better way, and pushing innovation in the right direction while preserving established best practices. The intention is far from being ignorant. On the contrary, it's about caring enough to attempt improving what we already have today.
Without any doubt, how we're creating websites today is sub-optimal at best. Huge bundle sizes, millions of tools and dependencies, slow, not-accessible, unmaintainable websites. And the list goes on.
If you consider yourself a decent software engineer and take pride in being one, you should try to be professional enough to create quality products. But that's my take on the matter. Ultimately, it's just a matter of priorities. If you're just focused on making money, moving up the career chain, or surviving given the current state of the software engineering world, this discussion is pointless.
Either way, I wish you success, and I hope someday you will join me in an attempt to improve and perfect the technology, which will lead to the creation of amazing, performant and accessible products, the better web.
I don't think you really have a good view on how we noways should build good, nice, userfriendly and dev maintainable websites. Bundle sizes exceed but we also have more bandwith, faster devices an we need to add lots of features to compete with the competition. It is just how it works. But if you see unmaintainable websites using modern technologies than you are doing it completely wrong. In my 20 year web dev experience I watched us fighting various browser related issues (IE) and trying to get things work cross browser just by using lots of old hacks. I'm glad those days are mostly over because of our new much improved set of tools all self respecting developer should use today.
I agree on most parts, maybe I don't understand the difference between classes and presentation classes. I'm sure all classes are meant for presentation. But how Tailwind let's you add lots and lots of separate classes for displaying 1 html component is mostly very confusing an time consuming while fixing issues with styling. And it makes the pure html harder to read.
I try to stay away from 'Vannilla JS' written websites because nowadays using reactive frameworks, typescript, reusable components, scss makes my work a lot easier, less buggier, and takes much less time to build. Great article btw 👍