

Bootstrap 3.3.0 and Bootstrap 4 - rayshan
http://blog.getbootstrap.com/2014/10/29/bootstrap-3-3-0-released/

======
Smudge
The most interesting part of this release (well, something that came shortly
before this release) is Bootlint, their linter for your bootstrapified markup.

[https://github.com/twbs/bootlint](https://github.com/twbs/bootlint)

I could see myself integrating something like this into a text editor or a
build process -- something that watches for bootstrap usage errors and helps
my team correct them early and quickly. That is, of course, assuming that we
stick pretty closely to vanilla bootstrap, which we usually don't.

One of my biggest issues with Bootstrap (and similar frameworks) is that,
beyond a certain point, you find yourself overriding and customizing them to
such a degree that it's more productive to just build your own "vanilla"
components that are specific to the way your site or organization uses them,
and then just ditch Bootstrap altogether.

One thing I'd like to see is a way of generally linting HTML structure (not
validity, but actual structure) with a goal of reducing complexity and
improving maintainability, regardless of what frameworks you may be using.
Something that spits out a ratio of meaningful, semantic markup to "div soup"
and tells you where you should spend the most time mopping up the soup. It
could also have some understanding of which kinds of div patterns are
acceptable -- bootstrap components, your own component library (see: OOCSS),
etc.

~~~
themodelplumber
> you find yourself overriding and customizing them to such a degree that it's
> more productive to just build your own "vanilla" components that are
> specific to the way your site or organization uses them, and then just ditch
> Bootstrap altogether.

This has been similar to my experience. Bootstrap can be overwhelming at
times, and there have been a few cases where I had to solve buggy behavior by
specific Bootstrap components by writing elaborate fixes that would not have
been required had I used my own framework. From that standpoint, working on a
time-consuming, yet practically throwaway-type site, Bootstrap was really
frustrating.

I do really like the low-baggage approach of Initializr's Responsive
configuration as well as the Responsive Grid System.

~~~
monk_e_boy
For small throw away sites I tend to have getbootstrap open and using Chrome
debugger cut and paste the bits off CSS I need into my own project.

Things like the nav bar are really clever, but way too much for most of my
projects. I like the button styles, but usually modify them... stuff like
that.

------
mattmanser
From Bootstrap 4:

 _Dropped support for IE8_

That seems pretty premature.

~~~
spollock
Not really. The only people who still need to support ie8 are in enterprise
and the enterprise is usually a couple years behind. By the time they upgrade
to bootstrap 4 ie8 support will have ended.

~~~
squiggy22
On highly trafficked sites , IE 8.0 usage can account for a fair amount of
users, and conversions etc. It's a tougher decision to make to take those
users off the table.

~~~
swartkrans
I won't work anywhere that cares about IE. If you are a company that wants to
support IE and have competent, professional engineers I hope you pay a high
salary.

~~~
matthewmacleod
This is such a stultifyingly stupid attitude it's hard to know where to begin,
or to understand how you can be effective as a developer.

Let's be clear – if you develop a service on the web, and a significant
proportion of the users or target market uses IE8—enough that there's a
positive ROI—then you are making a poor business decision by refusing to
support it.

~~~
kriswill
If you have significant resistance to upgrading from Windows XP or IE8, then
you need to charge more for your product. Let's face it, maintaining websites
on older browsers that have poor standards support is expensive.

I maintain such a web application myself. I work primarily on OS/X as my main
development machine, and run various windows versions in virtual box in order
to test these older browsers. Since the feature is usually completed using
modern browsers up-front, there almost always a QA glitch that has to get
worked out on IE8, chewing up another 20-30% of the total time of the project.
Time that costs everyone in the business time, energy and pain. Think about
that; 30% of the cost of development to support < 3% of the users.

When the large web companies like Google and Facebook remove support for these
legacy browsers, every web developer on Earth cheers. Every instance of IE8
that is snuffed from existence is more time we can spend on creating great
software features, and not wasting time back-porting.

------
derengel
Why is Bootstrap much more popular than Foundation? Is technically better for
most tasks?

~~~
illicium
Probably not, but the reverse is not necessarily true. It's mostly a matter of
taste -- e.g. if you don't like SASS, you won't want to use Foundation.

~~~
selamin
I can't imagine that's a real deterrent is it? Using LESS with Foundation is
fairly straightforward. Create an empty .less file and @import
'foundation.css'. Also, LESS and SASS have very similar syntax. There's very
little learning curve if you're going from one to the other...

~~~
illicium
You can't use any of the variables or mixins if you import the CSS in your
LESS file. The syntax is not the issue -- the tooling is.

------
sebslomski
I'm glad to see them finally switch from pixel based values to rem. This feels
totally overdue to me.

~~~
ZoF
I'd expect that was at least partially due to the fact that they were still
supporting IE8.

------
_random_
Phew, no BootScript!

~~~
_pmf_
> Phew, no BootScript!

How can a JS framework expect to be taken seriously if it doesn't even provide
a half-assed abstraction over a half-assed excuse for a language?

------
hackerboos
I would have liked to have seen LESS support dropped. Bootstrap is the only
thing keeping LESS alive right now...

~~~
mattwad
OTOH, without LESS a lot of us would have to add Ruby to our stack :p

~~~
hackerboos
[https://github.com/sass/node-sass](https://github.com/sass/node-sass)

~~~
illicium
> The libsass library is not currently at feature parity with the 3.2 Ruby Gem
> that most Sass users will use, and has little-to-no support for 3.3 syntax.

~~~
STRML
That said, it is mostly good enough. I've used it for a few SASS projects in
combination with Bourbon and it works great. IMO the huge compilation speedup
(I saw reductions from 5-6s to about 200ms) was worth the slight move
backwards in features. I became much more productive with a more responsive
livereload.

------
minimaxir
For Bootstrap 4:

> _Updated grid system with at least one additional tier for handheld
> devices._

Bootstrap already has a Mobile and Tablet layout, so which form factor would
this addition address? Phablets?

~~~
rpedela
Most likely there will be two tiers for phones: landscape (480-768px) and
portrait (0-480px).

[https://github.com/twbs/bootstrap/issues/10203](https://github.com/twbs/bootstrap/issues/10203)

~~~
jrochkind1
I often end up adding that myself already one way or another, so I hope others
are in the same boat and that is what they add!

~~~
Encosia
Same here. I almost always end up with quite a bit of custom CSS for a 480px
breakpoint between XS and SM.

------
bhhaskin
I for one am happy they are dropping support for IE8.

~~~
matti3
I can't believe that it has taken this long. Didn't Foundation drop IE Support
like 2 versions ago?

~~~
mVChr
Yes, dropped for v.4. Both are good frameworks and these new versions look
great, but considering I prefer SASS to LESS I don't think I'll be switching
back to Bootstrap any time soon.

~~~
zeitg3ist
Bootstrap has an officially supported SASS version.

~~~
mVChr
Ah, been a while, good to know, thanks.

------
maga
Speaking of dropping IE8, folks, is there a CSS framework for modern browsers
that preferably support only IE10+?

------
wuliwong
Am I the only one who actually thought that video was going to show some sort
of demo for the new release? hahahah. I was actually pretty disappointed when
that didn't happen.

------
sandeshd
It's too late to see rems and ems in bootstrap, but it's most welcome feature
I guess.

------
iends
Does it have RTL support yet?

~~~
joshstrange
Maybe try out something like this? [https://github.com/morteza/bootstrap-
rtl](https://github.com/morteza/bootstrap-rtl) (more info:
[http://stackoverflow.com/questions/19730598/right-to-left-
su...](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/19730598/right-to-left-support-for-
twitter-bootstrap-3))

~~~
TheGuyWhoCodes
Could be handy but the license is Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 so
can't really use it for commercial.

------
brickmort
This is the rhythm of the night!

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elchief
Please add the "clear" button back on input type=search! Thanks

