babel-plugin-macros VS vanilla-extract

One of the more promising alternatives is twin.macro - a Babel macro that processes Tailwind classes to generate JS objects understandable by various CSS-in-JS libraries. The developer experience (DX) of using it is amazing as you not only get all of Tailwind’s features without much change to your code, but you also get much more flexibility - all that on top of the traditional benefits of CSS-in-JS. Here’s an example code:

For example with Babel you could use babel-plugin-macros to execute this file at compile time and replace the file contents with the result of the computation. So appSettings would only have the configs for the current environment and nothing more and your source wouldn't need to change much.

It does require babel-plugin-macros which should also help with keeping things nice and performant in production. The package is part of a larger initiative im trying to achieve which is to create file-system based routing for all mainstream React and React Native routing packages. I have done everything I can to keep it as boilerplate free as I can. To give an example

MacroError: The macro you imported from "undefined" is being executed outside the context of compilation with babel-plugin-macros. This indicates that you don't have the babel plugin "babel-plugin-macros" configured correctly. Please see the documentation for how to configure babel-plugin-macros properly: https://github.com/kentcdodds/babel-plugin-macros/blob/master/other/docs/user.md

Yes, it also does that. https://github.com/kentcdodds/babel-plugin-macros

babel-plugin-macros

CSS is incredible technology, but holy shit does it feel archaic in a large Typescript project to have a massive design system in a string.

Why can’t I click an element and see the css files that apply to it? Why can I get autocomplete for my utility classes and custom properties? I would happily nuke CSS from a project for a typescript library that could marry the two worlds with minimal trade-offs, but I’ve yet to have the time or courage to dive into a library like vanilla-extract: https://vanilla-extract.style

Static extraction libraries like Linaria (2020) and Vanilla Extract (2021) later minimized runtime costs.

If you still think a polymorphic component would be better, really can't deal with plain HTML, or don’t want to write CSS in a separate file (though I am not sure why), my next suggestion would be to take a look at PandaCSS and create custom patterns or explore other options like vanilla-extract. In my opinion, these tools are an over-engineered CSS metalanguage but still better than a polymorphic component.

For styling DSS UI relies on vanilla-extract, which provides a robust scalable zero-runtime CSS base. Yet again, it’s a flexible choice, allowing for alternative approaches like CSS modules, Panda CSS, Tailwind etc.

Vanilla Extract Vanilla Extract is a zero-runtime Stylesheets-in-TypeScript library. It enables type-safe CSS with static extraction for optimal build performance.

In our experience, the best testing strategy for modern frontends is a combination of E2E testing (using Playwright+NextJS), and unit testing. Visual regression testing is not worth the effort in our opinion, especially with the advent of better CSS tooling like TailwindCSS and Vanilla Extract.

For building component libraries I’ve been a big fan of vanilla extract. Apparently it’s from the same people who made css modules

This sounds exactly like Vanilla Extract. https://vanilla-extract.style/