The Tailwind Caution - Balancing Knowledge and Tools

The growing trend of leaning heavily towards Tailwind CSS and the widespread rush to adopt it seems, in my personal view, potentially hazardous. This trend brings to mind the era of jQuery's emergence, when individuals were adept at jQuery but lacked fundamental JavaScript knowledge. I remember asking someone during an interview about their JavaScript proficiency, and they confidently replied that JavaScript was obsolete now, with no reason to use it, as they were proficient only in jQuery.

A bit later, we witnessed a rarer phenomenon where individuals knew Laravel but lacked a solid grasp of PHP. This phenomenon continues to this day.

However, in recent times, with the advent of Tailwind, we're observing individuals who merely memorize class names but lack insight into what happens behind the scenes. They lack even the simplest understanding of CSS properties.

Personally, I find this situation quite risky. Especially concerning the practice of passing on this trend to interns and those who are just beginning their web development journey. Incorporating Tailwind into their initial training seems unjust and can significantly impact their future.

Keep in mind that this isn't about portraying Tailwind as entirely good or bad. Like any other tool, Tailwind has its pros and cons. The bigger issue here is the lack of sufficient knowledge about CSS. These tools come and go. Every day, one of them becomes popular, and everyone rushes to embrace it. However, in large and professional projects, you will find yourself relying on raw CSS and eventually a preprocessor.

If we consider a roadmap for frontend development for someone starting with zero knowledge, it would involve focusing solely on HTML, CSS, and JavaScript for the initial 3 to 6 months. After mastering these basics, they could delve into preprocessors and build tools. Once these are mastered, stepping into frameworks becomes more feasible.

This path is tried and tested, and if you believe there's a long journey ahead, it's better to avoid diving into this realm prematurely. While early entry is possible, we all know what can happen and the consequences it might bring.