shoelace-css VS Tailwind CSS

HTMX gets all the hype right now, but there are other tools in the same vain, my favorite being Unpoly (https://unpoly.com). Together with Shoelace (https://shoelace.style) you get nice GUIs real fast, without the burden of complicated dependency management and build steps. Also, you don't have to write a lot of JS, just what is needed for small enhancements, as it was meant to be. Some might say the main drawback is the tight coupling to your backend. In my case, this is also the main benefit as it integrates perfectly with the backend framework (Django).

Hello HN,

I'm releasing Hyperdiv (https://hyperdiv.io), a framework for rapidly developing reactive browser UIs in Python, with immediate-mode syntax and using Shoelace (https://shoelace.style) as its built-in component system.

This short coding video will give you a good idea of what it is: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4XJKfxaqvGE

I wrote a brief article about the motivation and approach: https://hyperdiv.io/intro.html

Hyperdiv doesn't aim to compete with serious full-stack frameworks. The core aim was to make it easy and fast to prototype apps and build UI-based tools. I was originally motivated by internal tools at work -- feeling the need to quickly put together UI-based tools to share with both technical and non-technical coworkers, without having to stand up and maintain a full internal stack.

This is my first major open source release. I really appreciate your feedback and support. - Marius

For example, all the following design systems can be used without tooling (some of them provide ready-to-use bundles, others can be used through import maps): Google's Material Web, Microsoft's Fluent UI, IBM's Carbon, Adobe's Spectrum, Nordhealth's Nord, Shoelace, etc.

Here's what this looks like - note that I'm using Shoelace components for styling purposes.

There are lots of open-source design systems built with Lit. Shoelace is a popular component set that you might check out: https://github.com/shoelace-style/shoelace There are many others...

Would it help if we listed more open source projects on our site?

Because of our focus on components and the fact that you really can use just about any libraries and scaffolding for apps, we don't really have an app starter kit, but it's something we've talked about.

I'm really excited about all this, and it makes me have some faith in the web again. I think that Lit is a step in the right direction especially the ability to do SSR / SSG and hydrate a web page. Hopefully 🤞 Shoelace can get SSR running, which is currently one hurdle, but I think it is achievable.

Finally, for our front end, we’re going to be pairing Next.js with the great combination of TailwindCSS and shadcn/ui so we can focus on building the functionality of the app and let them handle making it look awesome!

You can use any frontend framework you want — react-based tooling, however, has a natural advantage as it models everything as a function of state, which can map 1:1 with the concept in Burr. In the demo app we use react, react-query, and tailwind, but we’ll be skipping over this largely (it is not central to the purpose of the post).

Tailwind CSS: A utility-first CSS framework for rapidly building custom designs.

First, you need to make sure that you have a working Tailwind CSS project…

Tailwind CSS

With better CSS approaches like TailwindCSS and Vanilla Extract (which we're heavily using) it's much easier to maintain the UI and make sure it doesn't change unexpectedly. No more conflicting CSS classes, much less CSS specificity issues and much less CSS code in general.

This app was built with Svelte Kit, Tailwind CSS, and many other technologies. For a full rundown, please visit the GitHub repository

Unlike Tailwind, which has over 77,000 stars on GitHub, Mojo CSS has about 200 stars on GitHub. But the Mojo CSS documentation is fairly good and you can find most of the information you’ll need there.

JavaScript React Flowbite Tailwind Firebase - Auth, Database, and Hosting Vite

- Performance is a feature.

Another common interpretation of brutalism is aesthetic, reacting to overly complicated user interfaces by creating simpler, more direct ones. Tailwind CSS (https://tailwindcss.com), one of today's most popular CSS libraries, promotes this approach in its component examples. There's also a neat library I've seen recently called "Neobrutalism Components" for React that I like (https://neobrutalism-components.vercel.app), providing components with a similar look and feel to Gumroad. This might more accurately be called 'Neo-Brutalism,' as noted in the comments.

A more engineering-centric interpretation of Brutalism focuses on form, structure, and efficiency, drawing significantly from brutalist architecture principles. Apart from the user interface itself, most mobile, desktop, and web applications are extremely bloated and often perform worse than sites from 10 years ago did. While one HTML file might be "less brutalist" than the original HN site, it is substantially more brutalist than any HN mobile app in existence, and offers nearly identical functionality.

A broader interpretation of brutalism, which could be termed 'Meta-Brutalism,' is embodied in the overall experience on this site through UX flows. Yes, in the strictest sense, the original HN site is more Brutalist in many ways, but it only shows 30 articles at a time and does not function as a PWA. For this site, the experience of reading 10 stories is arguably less brutalist, but for quickly browsing through several pages and skimming articles (which is how I read HN) it is a lot faster, and in my opinion, more Brutalist.

My primary inspiration was addressing software and tool bloat in UIs rather than strictly adhering to every principle set forth by David Bryant Copeland. I don't find it convincing that this site "isn't brutalist" compared to really any other experience apart from the Main HN site, and I would argue the overall experience is more brutalist in its performance and scrolling behavior.

As a side note: I generally don't like Brutalist architecture that much although I believe it is unfairly maligned. I visited the Salk Institute once and enjoyed it though (https://www.archdaily.com/61288/ad-classics-salk-institute-l...).