

Building Twitter Bootstrap - pawannitj
http://alistapart.com/article/building-twitter-bootstrap

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coderdude
Bootstrap attaining its current level of traction is quite remarkable and a
blessing to the web.

The idea is taking hold that a web designer doesn't have to build everything
from scratch in order to still be a respectable designer. The advantages of
drawing upon a standard collection of reusable constructs are becoming clear
to designers and non-designers alike. I've likened Bootstrap to jQuery with
its wide adoption and plugin ecosystem. We've already seen the Bootstrap
community form around the project in a similar way.

Writing a layout from scratch is sort of like writing a program in assembly
language. That's where I feel like we're still at. I imagine that at one point
there were people opposed to high-level languages like C because they
abstracted you away from the raw nit and grit. Though you still have to write
HTML and CSS with Bootstrap (especially if you want to customize the look),
you are abstracted away from the tedious boilerplate code.

There are other frameworks in this space but none have inspired so many people
to change the way they tackle web design. I look forward to a future where
more is accomplished on a shorter timeline, thanks to efforts like this
project.

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manishsharan
I like Bootstrap but I found it hard to do customized layouts with Bootstrap.
This was an issue when I tried to create custom widgets.

I consider myself to be CSS illiterate; writing Less mixins from scratch was
never an option for me.

Then I tried ZURB Foundation . And what I liked about Zurb was its
"infrastructure "of SaSS and Compass. I found there is a very vibrant support
ecosystem around Sass. There is of-course the Compass, Compass.app , Compass
recipes,bourbon-compass, Sassy buttons and more; a lot of useful Sass mixins
be found by Google search . I have found Zurb Foundation's SaSS codebase can
seamlessly coexist with those other mixins , which allows me to focus on my
java /javascript code knowing that the layout will be compatible. I like never
having to writ a mixin from scratch; Zurb/sass allows me ti include mixins and
merely customize parameters.

Zurb may not ship with as many widgets as Bootstrap but once I learned how to
layout and style a panel with Zurb and sass, writing javascript code to add
behaviors and methods to the panel is almost easy.

On the downside of Zurb, there does not seem to be any themes marketplace like
those for Bootstrap.

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pc86
It should be noted that this article is over a year old and is referring to
Bootstrap 1.0

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ChrisArchitect
goddamn, thanks. +1

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ricardobeat
It's funny how the frameworks that came before (skeleton, ZURB, 960gs, etc)
are always forgotten. IMO two things made bootstrap successful: 1) the Twitter
brand 2) colorful CSS3 buttons

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ssharp
I was fairly "loyal" to 960gs, but when Bootstrapped was released, I switched
right away. Bootstrap was responsive, which was a huge selling point, and
contained a few components and javascript features, which were nice to have
all bundled up in one package.

Bootstrap's documentation was another big advantage. It's a larger library
than pervious grid systems but it's modular structure and excellent
documentation lets you get started easily, while adding in deeper features
with little friction or confusion. I also think Bootstrap's roadmap looks
positive, as it is placing a larger focus on making quality mobile experiences
as simple as possible.

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lelandbatey
I think the excellent documentation is one of the biggest things that's
contributed to the success of bootstrap. As someone who started using
bootstrap after literally having no experience with CSS/HTML/JS, the
absolutely fantastic documentation means I have used bootstrap over everything
else. It's very comprehensive, very approachable, and excellently designed :).

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desireco42
Bootstrap is awesome and popular but let's not forget other two frameworks
Zurb Foundation and Skeleton, I've used all three, mostly Zurb lately and can
say that you can't go wrong with any of them.

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nicholassmith
It should probably be noted this article is a year old, especially given the
current discussion inside Bootstrap is about removing dropdowns as a core
component.

