Oh look it's this (pointless) argument again.

Let's be honest: a great many of us are tired of hearing this same old worn out discussion again and again

I agree with the general thought of this post, I think it's important to note that Bootstrap was originally made by @mdo, and @fat at Twitter to act "as a means to make better looking internal tools." Most sites that use the default bootstrap look are not as focused on their design as they are just getting their functionality live.

That being said:

• I love using bootstrap as a skeleton.
• I'm excited for things like Strapfork

Boring UI beats crummy UX any day of the week, and that's what 'strap is really about: improving the UI part of UX.

Hey everyone, you are doing [design / code / prototyping / thinking / existing] wrong.

Surprised this wasn't on Medium.

Your blog isn't responsive, and you are criticizing people for using Bootstrap? Personally, I think Bootstrap, Foundation, etc, have helped usher in the standardization of design for all viewports. You can easily build a responsive site without them, but their proliferation has made it a given, rather than an exception. I think this is hugely important.

Is this the sequel to "World, Please stop using Comic Sans because it offends me personally"??

To me, this rings the same as all the backlash against Squarespace Logo. Yes, if you are a designer yourself or working on a large/expensive/high-profile public-facing project, you probably will not want to use Twitter Bootstrap. But there are plenty of other situations:

• you could be just starting out at web design/development
• you could be working on a small project part-time for which design is not a big priority
• you could be someone who doesn't have the time or money to invest in design

…that said, I would encourage Bootstrap users to use Strapfork or something similar to distinguish yourself at least a little bit.

In my opinion, one of the examples he used, http://fiveaday.co/ is a beautiful site.

If you're arguing sites should stop using the same exact default gradients and buttons, I agree. However, if you're arguing traditional, proven design paradigms are bad to use because it looks like "600 sites out there" than I disagree. We are the .1% of internet users who actually browse 600 sites. For most people, seeing a site that is beautiful and works is a delightful experience.

First at all, thanks Evan and Jake for referring to Strapfork. I promise I won't disappoint you.

About the post: taking a look to expo.getbootstrap.com I couldn't recognise bootstrap in most of the designs.

I'm currently using Bootstrap to build an internal tool, I'm mostly a backend developer so using something like this saves me a lot of time messing with CSS and HTML. I personally like that it standardises some UI components, it's also easily tweakable using my own stylesheets.

I enjoy using it to quickly get UI's up and running and focus more time on developing actual features.

I'd go with the opposite direction, most people should use bootstrap and standardise.

Like with what happened in javascript & jquery, it means more shared resources and a much easier learning curve for everyone involved.

You can happily build complex sites from bootstrap, knowing other people will happily contribute as theirs less to learn.

this article is a year old...

If a site has the 'Bootstrap look' then that's lazy design; it doesn't make Bootstrap an inherently bad tool.

I've worked on front-end projects where people have opted to use Bootstrap and it is horrible. But, that's not what it was meant to do. It was designed to make internal tools more consistent and useable. If you're using it for a user-facing site then obviously you're doing it wrong.

It's like complaining that Dribbble is a terrible service for sharing music on. That's not what it was designed for.

Here's the thing, I agree 100%, but for different reasons. To be fair, I say the same thing about jQuery, Foundation, and many others. These are great tools, but people need to know what they do, and how they're being used. Instead, people just include them at face value and end up with a ton of unused code that the user has to download whether it's being used or not.

Case in point: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/49448/screens/Bootstrap.png

And this is not Mark or Jacob's fault. It wasn't intended to replace a front-end. The intent is in the name: Bootstrap, which is defined as: "In general parlance, bootstrapping usually refers to the starting of a self-sustaining process that is supposed to proceed without external input."

As long as I have no idea that I'm visiting a website that's using bootstrap (clearly standard bootstrap look), why should I care? Use whatever the hell you want, as long as you do good work. So use it, but make it your own. http://expo.getbootstrap.com/

Please stop bitching about using Twitter Bootstrap