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IT requires constantly learning new things. If we are learning and reading at home, then we are really working without pay, for good or bad.

It's true one can learn a lot from mostly using trial and error, but often it's best to read about the general rhyme and reason for the framework. Trial and error learning can be quite time-consuming.

For example, I've spent days trying to get Bootstrap (UI) to do otherwise simple things right, and am frustrated by the amount of fiddling needed to get things to work in multiple browser brands. I have to manually use a genetic algorithm of sorts to breed a working version. If there were a book that explained the Grand Theory behind it (assuming there is one), maybe I could have skipped all this wasteful fiddling.

UI frameworks are a huge time-sink which seems like should be a solved problem: GUI's are 30+ years old. I don't get it. Our (non) standards suck rotting eggs and nobody wants to overhaul them. Is there a mathematical proof that we must live with suckage to gain some so far unstated benefit? Is this really the best we can do in web UI land? I'd like to see fans of the existing standards justify we are really close to optimum. Or, are we just stuck in QWERTY Syndrome: nobody can replace the bad standard until enough replace the bad standard.




This seems like a good example of what the OP is preaching:

Learn the box model[0], and you won't have to 'fiddle' anymore, you'll know why your elements are arranged the way they are.

Or, you could keep ploughing through permutations of bootstrap magic until you stumble at the correct implementation.

[0]: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/CSS/CSS_Box_Mod...


People use Bootstrap mainly for layouts.

But today, this problem is solved using CSS grid (2 dimensional) and Flexbox (one dimensional)

Once you learn these two, you don't need Bootstrap.


Not enough browsers support CSS grid well, last I checked. Hopefully over time they will, but I'm sure they'll have limits, kinks, and vender differences also.


They are supported by all modern browsers afaik.


"Support" is on a continuum (non-Boolean), and not every user has a recent version installed.




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