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Discussion on: CSS 3 VS Tailwind CSS

 
gibbitz profile image
Paul Fox

What I'm describing above is basically a subset of bourbon (thoughtbot.com/blog/introducing-bo...) which predated tailwind. I could use that if I wanted something pre-written.

Wiring up post-css to allow you to to use tailwind is fine. I don't see much difference in writing a property definition in css/scss and writing the same as a shorthand css utility class referencing a library. In the end you should make your decisions based on the cost of supporting dependency management and specialized configuration to do what would come out of the box if you just wrote the rules in the codebase you control yourself.

Keep in mind that you build a site once, but it may get new features multiple times per year and with security updates, breaking changes may need to be adopted along the way. The more hands that touch an application the more training or detective work (if it was developed on contract) the team will have to do. This amounts to cost too. The closer you stick to core technologies the faster you can hire and onboard new team members and the easier it is to find and solve problems. I just don't see Tailwind as necessary enough to justify these costs.

We're all going to regret how complicated our build systems have gotten in the next 5 years. I just keep hoping that the law of diminishing returns will stop us from continuing to layer complications just to get a small gain that is outweighed or negated by what is required to support it.

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tanzimibthesam profile image
Tanzim Ibthesam

Scss itself has a very steep learning curve