Stephen Margheim (fractaledmind) wrote Affordances: The Missing Layer in Frontend Architecture this month. This quick post is my reply to his great article.
I hear the objection already: “Isn’t this just… semantic CSS classes? We tried that.”
You’re right that we tried it. But “it didn’t work” deserves unpacking.
I was indeed objecting that in my mind. But I was not thinking, “it didn’t work.” I was thinking, “and it has kept working for decades. Obviously the utility-only workflow described is terrible; it’s why I refuse to choose Tailwind. How are affordances better than what’s worked for a decade?”