An opinionated defence of hand-crafted CSS in a utility-class world There. I said it. Call me a dinosaur. Call me a purist. Tell me I'm fighting progress. I'll be over here, writing beautiful, considered, mine CSS — and enjoying every second of it. Tailwind CSS is enormously popular. Millions of developers reach for it on every project. The tooling is great, the community is huge, and the documentation is genuinely excellent. I respect all of that. And I still don't want it anywhere near my projects. Let me explain why. The Pumpkin Pie Problem Here's an analogy that I can't shake. Making a pumpkin pie from scratch means: roasting a whole pumpkin, scooping and blending the flesh, building your custard from scratch with cream and eggs and warming spices — nutmeg, cinnamon, a little ginger — making your pastry by hand, feeling the butter come together with the flour under your fingertips, crimping the edges, blind baking the shell, pouring in the filling, baking it until the kitchen smells incredible.…