Why I Don't Like Tailwind CSS: A Junior Frontend Developer's Perspective

As a junior frontend developer, I’ve experimented with various CSS approaches in my quest to find the most efficient and maintainable way to style web applications. My journey has taken me from vanilla CSS through Bootstrap and Material-UI (MUI), eventually leading me to embrace CSS-in-JS solutions, particularly Emotion with its styled components.

Over time, I’ve come to form strong opinions about different styling methodologies. One popular tool that hasn’t convinced me is Tailwind CSS. Despite its widespread adoption, I find it complicated to understand.

My Issues with Tailwind CSS

While Tailwind CSS has gained popularity, I’ve found several aspects that don’t align with my development preferences:

• Readability Concerns: Tailwind’s utility-first approach often leads to long strings of classes in HTML elements. This can make the code difficult to read and understand at a glance.
• Separation of Concerns: Tailwind mixes styling directly into HTML, which goes against the principle of separating structure from presentation. This can make it harder to maintain and update styles across a large project.
• Customization Complexity: Although Tailwind is customizable, doing so often requires additional configuration. This can be more complex than simply writing custom CSS or extending styled components. These issues led me to explore alternatives, ultimately leading me to discover and appreciate styled components.

What Are Styled Components?

Styled components are a CSS-in-JS solution that allows you to write actual CSS code to style your components. They enable you to define your styles using JavaScript template literals, keeping them scoped to specific components and reducing the risk of style conflicts.

const Button = styled.button`
  background-color: blue;
  border-radius: 4px;
`;

My Preferred Component Structure

One of the main reasons I love styled components is how well they integrate with my preferred project structure. For each component, I typically create a dedicated folder with the following files:

MyComponent/
├── MyComponent.tsx
└── MyComponent.styles.ts

This separation allows me to keep my component logic clean and focused while still maintaining a close connection between the component and its styles.

Benefits of This Approach

• Improved Readability: By separating styles into their own file, both the component logic and the styles become more readable. I can quickly scan the .tsx file to understand the component structure and behavior, and easily refer to the .styles.ts file for styling details.
• Modularity and Reusability: Styled components are inherently modular. I can easily reuse styles across different components or create variations of a component by extending its base styled component.
• Type Safety: When using TypeScript, styled components provide excellent type safety. I can define prop types for my styled components, ensuring that I’m using the correct props for styling.
• Easy Refactoring: If I need to change a component’s structure or styling, having separate files makes it easy to locate and modify the relevant code without affecting other parts of the application.
• Dynamic Styling: I can easily create dynamic styles based on props or theme values.

Conclusion

While Tailwind CSS offers a unique approach to styling with its utility-first methodology, my experience as a junior frontend developer has led me to prefer styled components. The clarity, modularity, and JavaScript integration of styled components align better with my workflow and mental model of component-based development.

However, it’s important to recognize that different projects and teams may have varying needs. Tailwind CSS might be an excellent fit for rapid prototyping or projects with specific design systems. As with any tool in the vast world of web development, the key is to understand the trade-offs and choose the approach that best suits your project’s requirements and your team’s preferences.

Ultimately, the goal is to create maintainable, scalable, and visually appealing web applications. Whether you choose Tailwind, styled components, or another approach, what matters most is consistency and the ability to efficiently deliver high-quality results.

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