Ask HN: Your opinion of Bootstrap

[Sealy]

Reading the other HN posts about boostrap there seems to be a divide in the community that I struggle to understand.

Some love it (https://github.com/twitter/bootstrap 52k stars!), others hate it. Reading these posts does nothing in helping me decide whether my next projects should use it.

Whats the current consensus of bootstrap among the HN community?

[meerita]

6 years ago, in a pizza restaurante with many developers on Barcelona I said we needed a Bootstrap project. I said we needed this as a foundation to develop things without to deal the countless hours of fixing vendor stuff, calculating things and such. Everyone looked at me annoyed.

I remember one guy said to me "that's for gays". "A developer must do all from 0 or he will not learn". And also "I don't need that kind of help".

6 years later I created over these years around 5 HTML/CSS frameworks using the same patterns, maybe changing the classes names to avoid propietarie code jealousy and all the yada yada. I did what Bootstrap is, over and over again.

Now I use Bootstrap when I start a new project. I know Bootstrap like if I've made it. I have no regrets of this. The framework is friendly named, it's well documented, maybe it's a bit over designed (I have to kill buttons styles over and over) but in the end it's a solid foundation of semantic HTML with cool LESS stylesheets.

We can argue many things about frameworks, but in the end, HTML and CSS are piece of cake languages and anyone who's working seriously and know the problems of code maintenance know well the pains of not having a good code foundation, a good documentation and a fixed process to make something and not making a big spaghetti code ball.

I've been in projects with CSS files that defined at least 4 layout grids. I'm so happy not dealing that again.

[declandewet]

I've loved Bootstrap since 2011 - it's well established, it fulfills it's purpose and adds some extra niceties on top. Lately though; I've started to appreciate semantic HTML.

I'm not a purist, but I definitely don't want to be seeing '.grid-x' style class names in my markup. Markup is meant to explain the content, not the presentation. That's one reason.

Here's another: While it is presumably simple to just use their LESS mixins to achieve a more semantic and customized site, Bootstrap's main target market is not those who use preprocessors - their call to action is a download button for the .zip of the compiled CSS, so that developers who don't necessarily use CSS preprocessors still have access to the tools.

This gives Bootstrap a competitive edge of some sort, as more developers can easily get started using it. As a result of this decision, though - those developers have to resort to overwriting the actual CSS to customize anything, and even then, there are still traces of the Bootstrap default styles left over, making it very easy to spot a Bootstrap website. Due to the project's popularity - a lot of these websites end up looking remarkably similar to each other.

If I'm working on a huge project, I will use a different kind of CSS framework (my favourite one at the moment is http://roots.cx/axis in combination with http://jeetframework.com). If it's a quick hackathon project, a mockup/wireframe or simply just a weekend project for fun or learning, then I'd use Bootstrap.

[shanellem]

I have to agree. I couldn't have said it better.

[vhf]

Bootstrap's initial intention was both not to lose time with webdesign when building back office applications and to have a consistant design in back office applications.

This is the reason why I think it's a great tool for any back office need, but not so great for front.

To me, Bootstrap feels like it's supposed to be used as-is. I love Bootstrap, it saves be a lot of time. But when I need a framework for front, I much prefer Foundation, which was meant to facilitate designing websites for Zurb's clients.

[workhere-io]

Be sure to check out alternatives such as Foundation (http://foundation.zurb.com).

[27182818284]

From my view it had a very large impact. Every new project I see, regardless of the background of the people, it bootstrapped with Bootstrap.

In addition, sites like Wrapbootstrap make it very cheap to get away from the default look.

[1123581321]

I don't know if there is any consensus. I think that mastering it will improve the average developer's CSS skills and taste. After that, a developer should be creating custom builds of Bootstrap and only using it where it is needed. No one should ever use it as the front of a website unless they are committed to completely reskinning it.

[pushkargaikwad]

As SteveJalim below said, don't bother asking, just do it :) I personally love bootstrap as I am not a great designer and can save lot of time, which is my main priority since I am building a one man company. If this means, having a site similar to thousands other with same buttons and login pages, I can live with it.

[stevejalim]

> Reading these posts does nothing in helping me decide whether my next projects should use it.

No snark intended, but asking HN probably isn't going to give you a useful answer anyway. Why not just build something simple/disposable with it? It's more about bootstrap + you than bootstrap + random HNers

[Sealy]

Sure, I appreciate the advice. I was considering switching the front end of my site over to bootstrap for compatibility and to save time (its custom css/jqueryui at the moment). Maybe I'll create a clone of it in bootstrap and see how it goes before making a decision.

[horyd]

I find it great for prototyping. Once things start to get more detailed though I start writing more of my own CSS to fine-tune things.

[andrewhillman]

I dig bootstrap but hate when sites use that blue focus on text fields.

[rfnslyr]

I've seen so many sites that are just the bootstrap template, vanilla CSS. It looks terribly ugly. I mean it's alright if you're prototyping, you don't want to waste time coding boring ole html and css if your focus is entirely on something else.

I hate it when people use it lazily. I love it when people customize it and truly make it beautiful to a point where you can't tell its bootstrap, which is the entire point seeing as its a framework.