HN Distilled

Essential insights from Hacker News discussions

Pico CSS – Minimal CSS Framework for Semantic HTML

Original Article

Hacker News Discussion

The Hacker News discussion reveals several prominent themes regarding minimal CSS frameworks, particularly in relation to Pico.css and its alternatives.

The "Minimalism" Debate: Size and Scope

A significant portion of the conversation revolves around the definition of "minimal" when applied to CSS frameworks. Users express differing expectations for file sizes, especially when uncompressed.

  • "I suppose the title should be Minimalist CSS Framework. At 71kb it really isn't minimal." - luckylion
  • "Indeed. I was expecting 5-10Kb. Tbf, it's only 11 zipped." - jonahx
  • "At Neat CSS website author says that zipping needs some action at browser side and it is not worth it for small css frameworks…" - sixtyj
  • "That’s if you load it all from the CDN though, build your own with SASS and it’s much smaller." - d1sxeyes
  • "I agree. beercss is less than 20kb and about the biggest 'minimal' I would consider" - drewbitt

This theme highlights a practical expectation gap: what one person considers minimal, another may not, with compression and build processes being key considerations.

Semantic HTML vs. Utility Classes

A fundamental ideological divide emerges concerning the merits of semantic HTML and class-based styling, especially contrasting with utility-first frameworks like Tailwind CSS.

  • "I agree. beercss is almost entirely semantic-based CSS if for some reason you need it." - drewbitt (This could be a slight misquote/contextual interpretation as the discussion later clarifies semantic vs. this framework's approach)
  • "There is also a semantic-based CSS that is overwhelmingly smaller than this one: https://newcss.net/" - kozika
  • "vehemenz: Tailwind is semantic too because the class names say what they do."
  • "imiric: That's not what semantic means."
  • "xutopia: I can't possibly recommend class based CSS soup anymore. Once you go with utility classes it's hard to go with anything else. It's super intuitive, you don't have to dig through loads of CSS files to figure out where the CSS is and you can simply remove or add classes as you need and see it right there in front of you."
  • "nailer: > I can't possibly recommend class based CSS soup anymore. Me neither! > you can simply remove or add classes as you need That sounds like exactly what I was thinking when you said class soup."
  • "imiric: ... And end up with elements that have dozens of classes until you need to parse CSS in your head in order to figure out what the element is supposed to look like. This methodology completely misses the point of using classes to begin with. Good class and ID names should be semantic, just like the markup. Don't describe what the CSS does; describe what the element is. Not only that, but it introduces useless abstractions that could've been avoided by just writing CSS directly. How is .content-center better than align-content: center? Tailwind and its ilk are one of the worst trends to have ever happened in web development. It's making people forget how to use CSS, while being useless in the process. I truly don't understand it. And, yes, I've worked on projects that used it extensively. It's awful."
  • "vehemenz: You're raising a bunch of meyerweb talking points from 2003, except why? WHY does markup need to be "semantic" in the sense that you mean? Actually, WHY? Provide a supporting argument that it makes a difference to developers or end users. Remember, we've all been doing it that way for years, and we switched to Tailwind. You need to have something more compelling to developers who have already made up their minds."
  • "imiric: If you've been hearing about this since 2003, then I shouldn't have to repeat the reasons here. You can look up countless articles that explain exactly why semantic HTML and CSS are a good thing much better than I can do justice here."
  • "imiric: ... That still doesn't explain why e.g. class="w-16 h-48 md:w-32 lg:w-48" would be preferable over a single class that describes what the element is and defines how it should look like and behave. I mean, to steel man your argument, I get the appeal of getting predefined and consistent breakpoints, and being able to prefix or suffix classes with sizes. But that doesn't seem like a worthy tradeoff for losing legibility, and polluting the markup with this noise. It's the same as declaring all CSS inline, except using classes."
  • "crazygringo: Utility classes are for people who want to throw away all the benefits of semantic naming because they don't want to go to the trouble of actually organizing their user interface, even though they see the value in organizing the rest of their code. I honestly don't get it."
  • "bcardarella: This is how CSS should be written. I will never understand why class names need to repeat the semantic purpose for a given element."

This debate highlights a core philosophical difference in approach: whether to assign meaning via semantic class names or to directly apply styles through utility classes. Critics of utility classes lament the loss of semantic meaning in markup and the potential for "class soup," while proponents emphasize speed, intuitiveness, and easier iteration.

Use Cases and Project Suitability

The discussion also touches upon the appropriate contexts for using minimal CSS frameworks like Pico.css.

  • "I’ve been thinking about creating a CSS tool somewhere about halfway between new.css and Pico CSS for very basic page layout tools (containers, callouts, menu bars, etc) that still focuses on being extremely small and performant." - bdn_
  • "I think this would be excellent. There's a whole class of websites /landing pages which right now Astro seems to be filling that niche. It's mind boggling how hard it is to do basic components on the web" - sroerick
  • "The hill is pointed at and the soldiers will fight, but obviously it depends what you are doing. Jira wont move to classless, but a blog might." - giveita
  • "Even though I use Tailwind CSS for larger projects, there are smaller, self-contained cases where Pico CSS is a perfect fit. Their "Usage scenarios" page describes it spot on: https://picocss.com/docs/usage-scenarios" - andreashaerter
  • "I use Pico CSS as a starting point for websites (as opposed to apps). I even put it in the my Django starter kit (https://github.com/stribny/sidewinder/). Recommended!" - petr25102018

The consensus is that minimal frameworks are best suited for simpler sites, blogs, or specific components rather than large, complex web applications.

Ecosystem and Alternatives

Users share a variety of alternative minimal CSS frameworks and related tools, indicating a growing interest in this space.

  • "codazoda: I’d love to see NeatCSS on your list. It’s not officially classless but I try to make it semantic as much as possible."
  • "poidos: Love pico. It’s my default starting point for nearly every side project. Sometimes I will reach for Neat [0] which is a great deal smaller."
  • "Winblows11: There's also this site which allows easy switching/previewing of classless CSS themes: https://www.cssbed.com/"
  • "simpaticoder: I like that resource, but it's missing an important one: github-markdown-css[1]. Given that most devs these days read a lot of Github markdown, it seems like a reasonable starting place for a css system."
  • "svat: See also https://dohliam.github.io/dropin-minimal-css/ which has quite a few more (including github-markdown-css mentioned in a sibling comment)."
  • "nicr_22: Love love love Pico. It's such a terrific starting point, and easy to tweak into different directions. It's the anti-Tailwind."

The mention of Pico.css alongside Neat.css, new.css, and others suggests a vibrant landscape of opinion and experimentation in the pursuit of lightweight and maintainable styling solutions.

LLM Integration and Usability

A specific point of discussion arises regarding the compatibility of these frameworks with Large Language Models (LLMs) for code generation.

  • "tcdent: yeah but does claude know how to use it?"
  • "mariocesar: Yes it does"
  • "lagniappe: Claude knows how to use plain HTML."
  • "minimaxir: LLMs may know the v1 version of PicoCSS, which has some differences from the current v2 (e.g. no SASS)."
  • "quantisan: I use Pico with LLM code gen for new projects. As you probably know, LLMs are predisposed to Tailwind and coding for industrial strength on any tiniest projects. The trick is to feed it the whole Pico docs as context and prompt it (i.e. in your CLAUDE.md) to make sure it uses Pico explicitly."

This highlights a practical consideration for developers who leverage AI for coding assistance, noting that LLMs might default to more popular frameworks like Tailwind unless specifically guided.

Design and Defaults

Some users offer feedback on the default styling of frameworks like Pico.css, particularly regarding element sizing.

  • "nrjames: I've tried using this before and pretty quickly migrated away. While I like the idea of it, the default styling is not great and I felt frustrated with the amount of adjustments it needed to support a data-dense site."
  • "codedokode: The buttons and form inputs are too large compared to standard desktop UI elements."
  • "bityard: Yeah. I had to zoom out to 75% in my browser before the text looked normal-ish sized but the "widgets" still looked very big and awkward. Maybe this was designed not just for mobile-first but mobile-only?"
  • "librasteve: I agree, but quite easy to scale back with a couple of root values"

This feedback indicates that while minimal frameworks are appreciated for their starting point, their default aesthetics might require significant adjustments for certain use cases or user preferences.

Broader Web Development Trends and Semantics

Underlying many of these points is a discussion about the evolution of web development practices and the enduring relevance of "semantic web" concepts.

  • "vorador: It really feels like all these concerns about semantic everything belong to a previous era of the web. I remember arguing with people 20 years ago who believed RDF and the semantic web was going to take over, but the use cases never materialized."
  • "wvbdmp: The use cases are perfectly material, but unfortunately the ad business depends on shitty, ever-changing HTML and scripting shenanigans."
  • "fleebee: Semantic web is a bit different from semantic HTML. As I understand it, the main point of semantic web is making the web machine readable, often using languages specifically designed for that task that are not HTML. Semantic HTML is more concerned with writing standardized HTML that leverages browser capabilities and respects users who use assistive technology to browse the web. Frankly, I don't see what this framework has to do with either."

This broader philosophical debate on semanticism versus practical, current web development trends adds another layer to the discussion, with some viewing semantic concerns as dated and others as essential for a better web experience.