CSS 'frameworks' are missing the point (2008) • Hacker News Board

Re: CSS 'frameworks' are missing the point (2008)

#11

Post by Cynddl » Tue, Jan 21, 2014, 4:14 PM UTC

_mtr wrote: post #4

Completely invalid advice in 2014. LESS and SASS now provide everything that CSS "can't do" in this answer.

The answer is still valid. LESS and SASS are CSS preprocessors, not frameworks. Sending spaghetti code to the user's browser can be limited but LESS and SASS do not address the flaw of CSS frameworks.

Re: CSS 'frameworks' are missing the point (2008)

#12

Post by overgard » Tue, Jan 21, 2014, 4:22 PM UTC

Frameworks are awesome when you want something that's good enough without a ton of work. I used to use bootstrap for a lot of tools that I didn't want to look ugly, but that didn't need to be pixel perfect design masterpieces either.

Re: CSS 'frameworks' are missing the point (2008)

#13

Post by PinguTS » Tue, Jan 21, 2014, 4:25 PM UTC

It was true at the time. But as times have changed, the answer to this question too if you think about possibility to do transitions in CSS and define key frames for those transitions. Things previously done in Javascript are now (partly) possible in CSS only. With that it makes sense frameworks for CSS.

It does not matter if the framework is mixed in by SASS or LESS, because from that point of view you could argue that Javascript frameworks are not required, because they could be mixed in as well.

Re: CSS 'frameworks' are missing the point (2008)

#14

Post by ehmuidifici » Tue, Jan 21, 2014, 4:29 PM UTC

kaonashi wrote: post #2

Stackoverflow had sense enough to close it as flamebait.

So the same could be done here! =)

Re: CSS 'frameworks' are missing the point (2008)

#15

Post by normloman » Tue, Jan 21, 2014, 4:29 PM UTC

Frameworks are overkill for most of my projects. Maybe it's because I don't write web apps, but I never need all of the features included in something like bootstrap. Just a few of the modules. What's more, I'm overwriting much of that code anyway when I style the site. In that regard, frameworks take more work, and make sites harder to maintain.

I find frameworks more useful for rapid prototyping. I can make a cheap wireframe with some bootstrap styles, and quickly move things around until I get the layout I like. then I'll build the final draft from scratch.

Re: CSS 'frameworks' are missing the point (2008)

#16

Post by davidhariri » Tue, Jan 21, 2014, 4:32 PM UTC

I totally agree and have been saying this for years. CSS frameworks run a high risk of overkill for 99% of apps. They also offer no potential for learning and it's more difficult to strip back a framework than it is to build your own. It's also super boring. No idea why anyone uses them for any creative work. Also what is the deal with grid systems!?

Re: CSS 'frameworks' are missing the point (2008)

#17

Post by davidhariri » Tue, Jan 21, 2014, 4:32 PM UTC

_mtr wrote: post #4

Completely invalid advice in 2014. LESS and SASS now provide everything that CSS "can't do" in this answer.

facepalm

Re: CSS 'frameworks' are missing the point (2008)

#18

Post by sergiotapia » Tue, Jan 21, 2014, 4:33 PM UTC

I don't know about you "leet hacker pros" but I do know that using bootstrap 3 helped me make my site[1] completely responsive - with ease the like of which the world has never seen the like of which[2]. If you are using bootstrap for it's color choices you're doing it wrong.

What I do is have bootstrap.css vanilla loaded, then I load a bootstrap_overrides.css.scss where I override styles/colors/looknfeel. Make bootstrap my own, you know?

[1] - http://smitecamp.com/

[2] - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UxVivkXUfdU&t=25

Re: CSS 'frameworks' are missing the point (2008)

#19

Post by ehutch79 » Tue, Jan 21, 2014, 4:38 PM UTC

normloman wrote: post #15

Frameworks are overkill for most of my projects. Maybe it's because I don't write web apps, but I never need all of the features included in something like bootstrap. Just a few of the modules. What's more, I'm overwriting much of that code anyway when I style the site. In that regard, frameworks take more work, and make sites harder to maintain. I find frameworks more useful for rapid prototyping. I can make a cheap…

You're mostly right that it's great for prototypes. However it's seriously great for building webapps where design doesn't matter. such as when maybe a half dozen people will ever see/use it.

Re: CSS 'frameworks' are missing the point (2008)

#20

Post by natural219 » Tue, Jan 21, 2014, 4:39 PM UTC

Even with less or sass, a basic, modern grid will have at least three levels of DOM-level logic that determines presentation, so you have things like this:

that you could perhaps use mixins to replace some of the elements with (you could mix-in "row" to "nav-header", and "col-sm-2" to "my-logo"), but regardless, you still need three DOM nodes, and trying to fit those into a purely semantic separate-structure-from-presentation box can get extremely tiresome.

I definitely don't like this. That said, the speed and flexibility of frameworks like Foundation/Bootstrap are just so vital for my front-end speed that I can't imagine giving these things up.

One other advantage is that, if you're working with other front-end developers who have used your same framework, there is a lot of knowledge sharing that happens automatically (knowing when and where to use containers, for example, can save a lot of headache when two devs are working on the same front-end layout).