[pier25]

I've been doing front end since the late 90s and I disagree with many points here.

One thing I do agree is the rant at the end about zoomers. We see stuff like tailwind popping up which really reflects the zoomer ethos of not wanting to learn fundamental stuff like CSS. "It's so easy to get started! Why would I learn anything else?"

I think gen Xers and late boomers will be the most tech developped generations because we had to use computers that were hard to use.

[wildrhythms]

On the contrary, Tailwind necessitates learning CSS. I don't see how someone can write "flex flex-col gap-2 mx-2 px-4 py-2 text-gray-600" without understanding flex, margins, paddings, and seeing how children inherit certain properties. Tailwind doesn't replace CSS; it just moves properties out of a stylesheet and into a component template. That said, if someone is trying to learn Tailwind before learning CSS they're going to have a hard time (I doubt they will succeed at all).

[klysm]

People that learned CSS before tailwind was a thing tend to hate the concept. But clearly it has to have some value right? Why is it so popular?

I argue that it solves a clear design deficit in CSS. You cannot have tight coupling with CSS and a lot of the time you want tight coupling. In-line styles are insufficient, so we have tailwind. It’s an API to css that lets you tightly couple your styles. The re-usability of those styles is accomplished by composition of components or composition of atoms via @apply.

[pier25]

> But clearly it has to have some value right? Why is it so popular?

Popularity doesn't mean much. I mean, look at React.

And Tailwind isn't that popular. From Twitter you might get the impression everyone is using it, but if you look at the State of CSS you'll see is not even close to something like Bootstrap or SASS.

https://2021.stateofcss.com/en-US/technologies