To Tailwind or Not

Tailwind is a popular utility first based CSS framework, something that front-end developers can use to make a page look more stunning and/or more consistent. A few interesting takes on tailwind, one of the most popular utility first css frameworks:

• Why Tailwind, a nuanced pro tailwind argument coming from someone who seems to have decided in the css in ja camp before
• Why Tailwind isn’t for me.

I am still not convinced about Tailwind. Heck, I’m even not a major fan of full BEM, although I use it when I am building more complex components with mutiple thightly coupled related parts. The principles behind IT CSS still form the basis of how I prefer to like CSS (note: the author of IT CSS, Harry Robert, is also maintaining a [guideline on how to write maintainable CSS](https://murb.nl/feed_items…

Semantics before anything else

My first rule in styling websites or applications is to style semantics over anything else.

1. First use as much of the agreed upon tags and properties that the latest HTML spec gives you
2. Extend this with microformats or schema.org-vocabularies and what else you can find that is an (pseudo-)standard for semantic markup
3. Finally, if no matching semantically rich descriptors can be found, try to think of future proof names for your elements that may be reusable. Think "metadata div(vision)”, "(search) result" (you may style result here and add another more specific styling for search results).

Style the semantical markup. Semantics is about meaning, and by defining your content's meaning in html and highlighting this meaning with your style brings you consistency from the start. This is not only nice to you as a maintainer of code, but also to your audience. It leads to consistent, predictable behaviors.

The counter movem…