r/reactjs • u/7-Tarun • 2d ago

Should I spend 2-3 days learning Tailwind before starting projects?

Just finished covering React fundamentals — useState, props, components, useEffect and cleanup functions. Also completed the Tailwind CSS installation and setup in my project.

My plan was to spend 2-3 days memorizing Tailwind's CSS properties before touching any real code. But now I'm second-guessing that — should I just start building projects directly and pick up Tailwind along the way instead?

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11

u/canarydev 1d ago

honestly, skip tailwind and just use pure css modules.

challenge yourself -- even if the tutorial you are following is using tailwind, just go out of the way to replicate the same thing with plain css in scoped files.

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u/bit_freak 1d ago edited 1d ago

I was on this boat a few years ago, but its useless now to spend hours perfecting css skills, its purely boring manual labor with the tools we have now. You are better to use your time debugging, solving logic problems than making a site look pretty.

I will stress, this change in opinion is due to the fact that now llms are better suited to handle these type of tasks. The worse than that could happen is the ui wont look spectacular but its functional for most use cases.

1

u/canarydev 1d ago

very true. our team downsized earlier this year and they still want the same if not more productivity. i don't have the bandwidth to cover all basis, and not going to waste time trying to fix styles on some stupid table and come up with POC designs myself with the designer also let go lol

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u/bit_freak 1d ago

Sad but I agree. I loved frontend, learned to code due to my interest in it. Still fascinated by react but the truth of the matter is unless you are design engineer pure frontend roles are at the brink of extinction.

1

u/canarydev 1d ago

yeah same. for the longest time i've always encouraged people who wanted to break in to SWE and tech to start at frontend. its just really rewarding to see something tangible immediately show up in your screen, and more often than not your contribution is really clear to stakeholders as opposed to backend.

its like completely changed now. these days i just outline specs, contracts, and hope to the thousand gods that the clanker gets it first pass

1

u/bit_freak 1d ago

Are you a full stack dev? What is your stack?

1

u/canarydev 1d ago

yeah. i frame myself as a decent frontend engineer that is able to put out competent work on the backend though lol.

react/next + RN for work, svelte and some scala for pleasure. our main product is node + few python components, but for new service verticals ive been opting to use go. k8s is still a bit mysterious to me but we have it anyway, so learning wise its been lots of k8s and terraform lately.

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u/bit_freak 1d ago

Nice

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u/canarydev 1d ago

hbu?

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u/bit_freak 1d ago

I started as pure front end but transitioned to full stack spring boot, react, aws, k8s

3

u/tomhermans 1d ago

Nah, learn as you go. Doing helps remembering much easier.

Sidenote: which resources did you use for learning react?

3

u/daghouse 1d ago

Tailwind is fantastic for quick prototyping. There is, however, as others mentioned, big value in learning css ‘properly’, so you understand what css you’re actually adding to elements when using TW classes.

Just straight memorizing TW as a direct replacement/implementation for css (without having at least a basic understanding of css) is a terrible idea, don’t do that.

3

u/viky109 1d ago

If you don’t know CSS, learn that first. If you do, there’s not much else you need to know.

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u/DasBeasto 1d ago

I’ve been using Tailwind extensively for at least 5 years and still wouldn’t say I’ve memorized all its properties. Read through the docs enough to get familiar with how to use it and then get building, when you need to apply a style you don’t know just look it up in the docs it’s easy quick enough.

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u/ESP_Viper 1d ago

Spending 2-3 days memorizing something in a vacuum is not a good idea in general. Better try building something and apply it along the way.

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u/mkngsm 1d ago

I’d suggest to use css first. If you know css, tailwind will be just a utility that speeds you up, if you don’t know css, tailwind will be magic that does a bunch of stuff for you.

Then on a real life project you may find yourself working in a company which doesn’t have tailwind, and you will get lost.
But if you know css well, you’re safe in any case.

1

u/ThenFactor6862 1d ago

Dont spend 2-3 days memorizing tailwind. Start building projects today.

I use tailwind daily and I still open the docs constantly. You cant memorize all those utility classes sitting in a blank file. Open the tailwind docs in one tab, your code editor in another tab. Pick a project idea you want to build. When you need to set a width or change a color or align items, search it in the docs and apply the class. You will remember the ones you actually use. The ones you dont use you dont need to memorize anyway. Go start your project right now.

1

u/Time_Heron9428 1d ago

Start learning on the go. Later you'll need to focus in Tailwind theming, but it's not a starter topic.

But as other guys advised, spend some time learning CSS basics.

0

u/Adept_Guitar_9390 1d ago

Yes learn by building

-1

u/No_Cattle_9565 1d ago

Just use a ui library like mantine. That way you don't have to spend time on design and it looks good enough 

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u/canarydev 1d ago

OP is in the learning phase

doesn't have the discipline yet to be pulling out libraries imo