Stay Strapped
04 Oct 2023
What is Bootstrap 5?
In today’s continually changing digital landscape, creating a visually appealing and functional web application has become a very important part of software engineering and development. While this can be completed with HTML and CSS alone, life becomes a lot easier with the use of UI Frameworks such as Bootstrap 5. Bootstrap 5 is a CSS and Javascript framework, which allows for easier styling and formatting of HTML code compared to using CSS alone. However, this streamlined version of CSS comes with the tradeoff of a higher learning curve. Learning every tool that Bootstrap has to offer requires time and honest effort. Therefore, the question of whether it is worth it or not to learn UI Frameworks such as Bootstrap 5 is up to the individual, and depends on a variety of factors such as specific goals and context.
Experience With Bootstrap 5
Personally, I believe that Bootstrap 5 is worth learning in the long run. While the learning curve may be steeper than raw HTML and CSS alone, the payoff is immense in terms of efficiency and user experience. During the practice WODs, there were multiple times where we were asked to create multiple columns of text. When we were learning pure CSS, I was extremely frustrated and making the columns took me a lot of time to do with the simple CSS classes and styling. Even though I finished it, the columns wouldn’t stay formatted correctly if you change the size of the web page. When we were given the same task with Bootstrap 5, it was as simple as placing the text in row and column classes. What took me over half an hour to do with CSS took me less than a few minutes to do with Bootstrap 5, and that’s only a single example of how much simpler Bootstrap has made coding for me. Even correcting the spacing and margins of an image can be as simple as placing it in a div tag with the container class. While the number of classes can be overwhelming, it’s still worth learning compared to the headache that is pure CSS.
Bootstrap 5: Shaping Web Development
In conclusion, Bootstrap 5 proves itself to be a powerful tool in the realm of software development. Others may argue that HTML and CSS alone can suffice for certain projects, but I personally can never go back after experiencing the simplicity of Bootstrap. With a vast assortment of tools and components, front-end development has never been easier and I highly advise everyone to at least give UI Frameworks a shot.