Summary:

The pair app needs a CSS framework to expedite styling. The current proposed decision looks at two of the more common CSS frameworks and evaluates their respective tradeoffs. For the sake of flexibility of styling and improving learning, I would suggest using the tailwindCSS framework.

Proposal 1: Implement Bootstrap

Pros:

  1. Large community: Bootstrap has a large community of developers and designers, which means there are plenty of resources available to learn and use the framework, including documentation, tutorials, and pre-built templates.
  2. Wide range of components: Bootstrap provides a wide range of pre-designed components such as buttons, forms, and navigation menus that can save time and effort, especially if the team lacks experienced designers.
  3. Responsive design: Bootstrap is designed to be responsive, meaning the website will look good on any device, improving the user experience and ensuring the website is accessible to a broader audience.

Cons:

  1. Limited customization: Bootstrap's pre-designed components have a particular look and feel that may not fit the project's design requirements, resulting in more custom code required.
  2. Large file size: The extensive library of pre-built components and CSS files means Bootstrap has a relatively larger file size, which can impact page load times.

Proposal 2: Implement TailwindCSS

Pros:

  1. Highly customizable: TailwindCSS provides high customization options, making it easier to modify and extend the framework to meet specific project needs without having to write any custom CSS.
  2. Flexibility: TailwindCSS is a utility-first framework that offers a set of pre-defined utility classes that can be used to style HTML elements quickly and easily. This allows for complex layouts and designs without having to write custom CSS.
  3. Smaller file size: TailwindCSS is designed to be lightweight and efficient, with a smaller file size. This means the website will load faster and use fewer resources, improving overall performance and the user experience.
  4. Learn CSS: because TailwindCSS is a utility-first framework, I have found that when reasoning about CSS even in projects where tailwind is not available to me, I'm able transfer CSS knowledge I have from working with tailwind to other CSS contexts. Given that a basic understanding of CSS is important for fullstack developers, tailwind acts as a nice intermediary scaffold without having to worry about how CSS cascading works (which can trip up the best of us).
  5. Large community: In addition to a number of projects, many in the gorails community use tailwind, so there's a large amount of adoption/support. Additionally, both Ariel and Cody have used tailwind extensively in their respective projects.
  6. Fast Prototyping: related it being highly flexible and customizable, prototyping to a design spec/mockup can potentially be faster with tailwind since it can enable you to easily and quickly add utility classes as needed to make sure that the element is styled as requested.

Cons:

  1. Steeper learning curve: TailwindCSS's utility-first approach may require additional time to learn and understand, especially for those new to the framework.