Ask HN: To Bootstrap or Not?

[QuantumGuy]

To make a long story short I am quitting my job December 1st and programming for money. I am 18yrs old by the way. As I am learning web development the phrase "bootstrap" keeps popping up and so I Googled it. I think it is a good idea but here is my problem. Considering the fact that this will be my first web development endeavor should I use things like bootstrap and such to ease the process of coding? Or should I just stick to doing all the coding myself so I can learn more Also let it be known I have absolutely no real programming experience before this month at all.

[dylanhassinger]

I think you are mixing up 2 different things:

To "bootstrap" - verb - means building a business without borrowing money. See 37signals.

http://37signals.com/bootstrapped

vs.

Twitter Bootstrap - noun - a frontend web framework that helps speed up building websites and prototypes.

http://twitter.github.com/bootstrap/

[QuantumGuy → dylanhassinger]

Ah thank you, that clears thing up.

[xvolter]

I've used Twitter Bootstrap for a few designs now, it's a useful tool but requires you to maintain more LESS/CSS than more other frameworks (to support the responsive designs).

If you are not going to support responsive, there are plenty of other CSS frameworks out there to compare against, from Blueprint to the new BootMetro style.

If you are looking to learn web development, starting with bootstrap will throw you into learning LESS (a CSS compiler language) and into the new concept of responsive designs (where the page resizes itself to fit to phones, small devices, tablets and desktops). This can be useful for certain applications, where others responsive designs would be entirely useless.

Overall I've liked Bootstrap, it contains all the usual features you find in a CSS framework, but they throw in some other things most do not, such as a small JavaScript UI library.

Also being 18 doesn't make much of a difference, I was working full time as a web developer since 15 and knew HTML/CSS/etc when I was 9 - you will find many people on Hacker News like that. You should say your confidence level, like "I'm kind of noobish with web development, so forgive any questions if they seem obvious." Replace "web development" with anything.

[QuantumGuy → xvolter]

thank you

[gadr90]

Learn to use the good standards and it will simply save your time. You won't "learn more" by not using the best tools there is, you'll simply learn the hard way... Which you shouldn't be doing if there's an easy way.

KISS: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KISS_principle YAGNI: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/YAGNI

By which I mean: always go with the easiest solution to your problem. Developers have a hard time doing that... I get you.

[swastik]

You're talking of Twitter Bootstrap and the likes, so... yes. There are many others too (Zurb Foundation and Skeleton) that are very good.

Here's a good comparison between some of the most known ones to help you out: http://responsive.vermilion.com/compare.php

It would help to have an understanding of how these work behind the scenes though. Best of luck!

[acesubido]

You have to take into consideration what your goals are and I'm guessing you want to create a sustainable business. Read up Lean Startup by Eric Ries and get your product out there quickly by using "things" to ease the process.

[caphill]

Twitter Bootstrap just makes designing easier if you can't design it would make sense to use it.