As someone who's been doing CSS for 20 years now, I think Tailwind is an absolute blessing. They've gone a bit crazy with the latest features, but the core of it is so productive to use, especially in teams. Big fan here.
I think they are referring to custom values. As a part of the move to the JIT compiler, it's possible to define arbitrary classes and have Tailwind pick up on it and create a class.
Consider this. `text-red-500` is an out of the box class from TW that gives you a solid red text color. With the new JIT compiler, I can write `text-[#BADA55]` and the compiler is smart enough to generate a class with that hex code as the value for the color. You can use this syntax for almost any available class.
This feature is useful for some cases (marketing sites with finicky pixel perfect requirements) but it can also be abused. It's up to your team to decide where it makes sense to break out of the design system, or if you should add that new value as a token to be reused throughout the app.
I agree that tailwind may not be the most elegant way to style a webpage, and I also prefer classes and regular css or sass, but I don't think you will convince anyone to give up tailwind with such a toxic comment. Perhaps it would just be better if you stopped ruining hn for the rest of us. Additionally, styling and accessibility are not related (unless your layout is terrible, but that is just as doable with css).
Tailwind means making your HTML non-semantic, usually backed by JavaScript. This has created an arms race where parsers such as screen readers need to do ever-evolving heuristics to provide a reader mode. The code usually cannot be modified or even viewed in a readable form by users. Of all things, it's not user-centric.
You're going to tell me next that you have a JSON interface instead. But that's a site-specific API that's designed for vendor lock-in. You're going to find that doesn't work and need to create a universal format. And now you have completely recreated the problem HTML was intended to solve originally.
All of this wasted effort that web Devs do doesn't come from nowhere. The people with slow browsers or accessibility needs are absorbing your productivity gains 1:1.
I'm sorry but this doesn't make any sense at all, what on earth are you talking about? I'm all for constructive criticism, even if it's harsh, but this makes it sound like you've literally never read anything about Tailwind at all.
First, Tailwind has literally no opinion on whether your html is semantic or not. Second, it isn't "backed by javascript", that's nonsense and is just self-evidently not true. Third, "people with slow browsers" benefit because the CSS footprint is smaller. Fourth, the quality of the site improves with Tailwind because developers can spend their unused energy on other enhancements.
Why get on this thread and spew a bunch of bullshit? What's the point dude.
The JS part is just clean up the final result result of classes.
From what I've seen online using Tailwind over other frameworks like Styled Components, gives +5x speed ups. So it is not wasted effort.
> The code usually cannot be modified or even viewed in a readable form by users.
That's right, most of the time it is even minified. It' is not meant to be read by humans but by the browser. Poor accessibility is is a result of it not being prioritized designing/development of a product.
Semantic web is a lie. HTML and CSS is not expressive enough in itself to pull that off - you are guaranteed to put many many divs purely for stylistic reason all around your website. Also, as mentioned there is nothing in tailwind requiring only divs, you can use any semantic tag you want, and the whole page can be completely static without an ounce of js..
