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Bootstrap 4 has arrived! (Beta)

6 years ago from James Lane, UI Designer [Moderator]

  • Johan Ronsse, 6 years ago

    The question is, does anyone care anymore? How do you work on this for 2 years and don't realize the need for namespacing? What is up with the load of utility classes that do one thing?

    I have often used Bootstrap in the past but I am moving away from it completely. Just have to find a good popover/modal/tooltip replacement and I'm good to go with a clean BEM/ITCSS setup.

    19 points
    • Laura McCartney, 6 years ago

      The more proficient and experienced you become as a developer the less need you should have for Bootstrap.

      9 points
      • Robin Ebers, 6 years ago

        I disagree, Bootstrap is a great tool to - you guessed it - bootstrap projects. To say Bootstrap is just for people starting out is simply invalid. It's not all about writing the most perfect BEM/atomic/component based CSS, it's also about how easy you can onboard new people onto that project, particularly in a commercial context.

        26 points
        • Aaron WadeAaron Wade, 6 years ago

          Nailed it

          3 points
        • Shashwat Amin, 6 years ago

          Basically. I work for various design agencies and almost all new employees, contractors, etc know bootstrap so onboarding them with the agency projects is very easy - compared to say, using an estoric framework.

          4 points
        • Johan Ronsse, 6 years ago

          The arguments that Bootstrap gets you started quickly and allows you to onboard new devs easily are true, but some web app projects tend to have codebases that have to be maintained for years. The initial simplicity then becomes a double-edged sword, where some choices within the framework that were made to keep things simple actually make things a lot harder. One doesn't simply refactor after some choices have been made - why can't we have good ones from the start?

          1 point
        • Laura McCartney, 6 years ago

          I didn't say it's only for people starting out. I was addressing this;

          I have often used Bootstrap in the past but I am moving away from it completely.

          I think this is a natural and common progression.

          Bootstrap is not always the best tool for the job. The more experienced you are the better your ability to decide when something like Bootstrap is appropriate and when it isn't should be.

          This doesn't always happen. I've worked alongside people who have been in development for years and still rely on Bootstrap for things that absolutely do not require it (jQuery is also bad for this) and therefore using it adds a lot of bloat and can actually be harder/more time consuming to maintain.

          0 points
    • Norm Sheeran, 6 years ago

      I care.

      15 points
      • Robin Ebers, 6 years ago

        Thank you, same here. Been using Bootstrap for years. Have tried other frameworks, but Bootstrap is just perfect to bootstrap new projects. Even if I am required to sometimes not use Bootstrap, I end up calling the classes the same (e.g. btn btn-lg etc) so it is easy to onboard other people later.

        7 points
        • Mark Otto, 6 years ago

          Y'all are the best, thanks for the kind words. Please don't hesitate to holler with feedback!

          14 points
    • Mattan IngramMattan Ingram, 6 years ago

      I'm a long time supported of BEM/ITCSS and having your CSS classes follow the pattern of your HTML, but after reading this article: https://adamwathan.me/css-utility-classes-and-separation-of-concerns/ I have a newfound respect for functional CSS and utility classes and keeping their concerns separated.

      That doesn't mean I want to use Bootstrap, but just that utility classes are not as bad as I once thought.

      2 points
    • Daniel FoscoDaniel Fosco, 6 years ago

      does anyone care anymore?

      Seriously? Bootstrap is one of the most widely adopted front-end frameworks on the web and will continue being widely used for quite some time. It might not be the ideal choice for a scalable design system, but it's a kickass tool for building websites.

      They might not be up to date on the latest technical advancements and the naming convention du jour, but having a framework of this proportion dropping IE8, using flexbox and moving to Sass will be a major advancement to the web.

      Not to mention this is an open source project where Mark & team poured years of free work to serve the community. We all owe a lot to Bootstrap, and your comment could definitely get some chill.

      29 points
    • Alec LomasAlec Lomas, 6 years ago

      What is up with the load of utility classes that do one thing?

      Functional / Atomic CSS is the jam, especially for designing/ideation in the browser and visual consistency. Don't knock it 'til you try it :)

      0 points
      • Johan Ronsse, 6 years ago

        I tried it and boy some people are going to be disappointed when they have to refactor code like f5 ph7 wtf19. They've added an impossible dependency tree to keep track off in their projects.

        3 points
    • Mark Otto, 6 years ago

      Just because you don't need it anymore doesn't mean someone else doesn't :). Bootstrap is used by millions of people, many of whom don't know front-end development as well as you or I. It's not a solution for everything, but it's a solution to a lot of problems out there.

      How do you work on this for 2 years and don't realize the need for namespacing?

      We've missed on a ton of things over the last couple years. It's tough to find time to do it all when we're also working full-time. I myself managed a 30 person team at GitHub :).

      What is up with the load of utility classes that do one thing?

      We have responsive utilities like Tachyons and more to help with commonly repeated property-value pairs. Makes for super fast development and ideally can help folks reduce their custom CSS.

      15 points
      • Johan Ronsse, 6 years ago

        I would like to take a moment to acknowledge the work that been put into Bootstrap, especially from you. From a "default design" perspective it's one of the few frameworks that makes the best visual choices that will work in a wide variety of contexts.

        So don't take my comment the wrong way. Lots of <3 for Bootstrap, and when compared to the other frameworks, Bootstrap's the best.

        I guess I am "beyond Bootstrap" in the territory where I have more needs.

        0 points
    • Diogo FernandesDiogo Fernandes, 6 years ago

      A lot of people care.

      There's back-end developers who doesn't know front, but the pattern and it's docs facilitate to create an easy and fast platform. Not every site need to be unique, some sites are a basic CRUD to manage information to whenever he needs.

      And bootstrap has a pretty good example that can teach a lot of developers.

      I've used bootstrap a lot, and learn a lot also. New front-end developers can learn a lot with bootstrap.

      4 points
    • Andrew Parker, 6 years ago

      Bootstrap is a great tool - it's helped raise the visual design level of so many projects born of a small dev-only team.

      What does depress me increasingly is how many orgs see it as a replacement for valuing front-end, and even as a substitute for CSS.

      On a recent project we were told to insert the entire bootstrap css from a CDN into a mature live site. All counter-arguments about conflicts and bloat were overruled because "You can hire devs who know bootstrap" :-/

      0 points