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Twitter Bootstrap Now Powering 1% of The Web

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Re: Twitter Bootstrap Now Powering 1% of The Web

#51

Post by christiangenco »

There are several comments here about why using Bootstrap is bad, primarily because it limits the workflow and freedom of the designer, and includes too much stuff you don't need.

But that's entirely the point of Bootstrap.

It's not something that's supposed to be used by designers. It's perfectly tailored for someone like me: a back/middleware developer who sucks at design, but has enough sense to know that when I try to design something it looks like poop. It's for projects I can't afford to bring on a dedicated designer for. I can just include a single CSS file, follow a basic HTML structure, and have something that looks good enough on every browser and mobile device. It's not going to win any design awards, but again, that's entirely the point: without a lot of thought on the front end, I have a design that doesn't get in the way of what I'm actually building.

What would people like me be doing without Bootstrap?

Re: Twitter Bootstrap Now Powering 1% of The Web

#52

Post by wslh »

teh_klev wrote: post #50
wslh wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I clearly know why I chose Bootstrap for some of my sites: i) In the past I spent a lot of time with designers and now I can design a site from scratch myself (I am not a web developer). Before bootstrap sites designed by me looked very well on Mosaic :-) ii) If I work with a designer I need to spec a lot of details (bullets, headings, columns, colors) and how the fit together. With bootstrap I know that I can change…

Your two examples are very nice for being a non-web developer (by which I take you mean "designer"). For a non-web designer such as myself - in fact I am pathologically bad at it - you give me some hope that with Bootstrap I can knock out some nice looking sites for some moonlighting work I'd like to undertake.

I am neither a designer nor a web developer!

I develop software for the desktop (mainly Windows). Obviously I can develop web applications but my issue was related to design. I really don't want to learn CSS beyond the basics to do trivial fixes.

Re: Twitter Bootstrap Now Powering 1% of The Web

#53

Post by cheald »

Mashable's current design is based on Bootstrap. You wouldn't know it to look at it, though - we used bootstrap-sass, ripped out the pieces we didn't need, replaced others as the design called for it, while still getting the benefits of the scaffolding.

When you treat Bootstrap as a foundation rather than the entire presentational layer for an application, it's really quite good. Unfortunately, many people throw Bootstrap into an application and call it done, resulting in a very homogeneous look-and-feel across a tremendous number of websites.

Re: Twitter Bootstrap Now Powering 1% of The Web

#54

Post by r0s »

For a recent project I decided to drop all frameworks and learn responsive design from the ground up.

I was amazed how easy it is, and how little 'boilerplate' or scaffolding was needed.

Obviously there are tradeoffs, I'm sure my rounded corners don't work on old versions of IE. Benefits are one less layer of complexity, and that's powerful. I feel the same way about CSS preprocessors.

Now... I'm not going to evangelize against it, and I'm sure I'll need to use bootstrap again. But it's great to know I don't need a framework, a grid, or any of that extra.

Re: Twitter Bootstrap Now Powering 1% of The Web

#55

Post by tlongren »

christiangenco wrote: post #51

There are several comments here about why using Bootstrap is bad, primarily because it limits the workflow and freedom of the designer, and includes too much stuff you don't need. But that's entirely the point of Bootstrap. It's not something that's supposed to be used by designers. It's perfectly tailored for someone like me: a back/middleware developer who sucks at design, but has enough sense to know that when I t…

Exactly as I use it, too. Prior to bootstrap and others like it, I had a couple standard designs I used, but the flexibility of bootstrap is what drew me in.

Re: Twitter Bootstrap Now Powering 1% of The Web

#56

Post by enra »

Brajeshwar wrote: post #47

Bootstrap, Foundation and every other general purpose frameworks are good. Pretty good for non-designers, actually. However, if you're a designer these framework are more of a harsh load of excess baggage that drags down the design. I have used Bootstrap for quite a few designs and so also with foundation and many other multitude of frameworks. I even did tried my hands on starting off my own grid framework. However,…

Or:

1. Use Bootstrap

2. Customize it

Has worked for me on https://kippt.com & https://sendtoinc.com without dragging down the design

Re: Twitter Bootstrap Now Powering 1% of The Web

#57

Post by jmathai »

christiangenco wrote: post #51

There are several comments here about why using Bootstrap is bad, primarily because it limits the workflow and freedom of the designer, and includes too much stuff you don't need. But that's entirely the point of Bootstrap. It's not something that's supposed to be used by designers. It's perfectly tailored for someone like me: a back/middleware developer who sucks at design, but has enough sense to know that when I t…

I'd argue that it's a great tool for companies that have paid designers on staff too. What it provides us is a consistent and predicable framework to lay out pages. Anyone can contribute because it's becoming a well known/understood tool to work with.

I doubt that more than 1% of websites need such unique designs that Bootstrap is too limiting.

Re: Twitter Bootstrap Now Powering 1% of The Web

#58

Post by semiprivate »

Ok ok, first of all "The Web" and "our source code search engine" are completely different things and ya'll fell for some rather obvious trolling/crappy marketing talk.

Second of all, not liking bootstrap is like not liking martini shakers 'cos you don't have any martinis to shake.

Just because you don't have a use for a tool doesn't make the tool useless and clearly lots of people have martinis to shake.

This trolling and bickering is very non-hacker/non-productive and ya'll need to settle.

Re: Twitter Bootstrap Now Powering 1% of The Web

#59

Post by ceejayoz »

christiangenco wrote: post #51

There are several comments here about why using Bootstrap is bad, primarily because it limits the workflow and freedom of the designer, and includes too much stuff you don't need. But that's entirely the point of Bootstrap. It's not something that's supposed to be used by designers. It's perfectly tailored for someone like me: a back/middleware developer who sucks at design, but has enough sense to know that when I t…

Precisely. My side projects aren't projects I can hire a designer for, and my design knowledge is limited to a) knowing what's shit and b) knowing my "design" is included in a).

Re: Twitter Bootstrap Now Powering 1% of The Web

#60

Post by trusche »

lifeisstillgood wrote: post #31
helipad wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you compile Bootstrap from its LESS files you can pick and choose which parts you include. Also means you can override a lot of the default mixins fairly simply.

Is there a Dummies Guide to customising bootstrap (literally or figuratively) I would rather not waste the time experimenting these days

It's not quite a guide, but you can customize what to include, and make tweaks to fonts, spacing and the like, directly on the bootstrap site:

http://twitter.github.io/bootstrap/2.3.2/customize.html

It's fairly self-explanatory, and the resulting file will contain only the code you actually use, making for smaller file sizes.

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