I started here in FCC 1 week ago and i’m currently doing the portfolio project. To add a navbar i tried using the resources of this site: https://www.w3schools.com/bootstrap/bootstrap_navbar.asp in my pen code and it didn’t work.
Then, i tried using these: http://v4-alpha.getbootstrap.com/components/navbar/#nav which is a lot more complicated to me to understand but worked well. I noticed that codepen uses bootstrap v4 , i’m not sure if i should start learning with the v3 and, in the future, jump to v4 or if i should start learning with the newest version.
Well, the decision is up to you at the end but remember that Bootstrap 4 is only an alpha version, which means there is still changes going on. If you want stable, use v3 for now, just copy the CDN link in the bootstrap website for v3 and you are ready to go.
Yep, I agree with Brian.
You can do it by open codepen “Settings” and on the CSS part copy the link related to the version of Bootstrap you want to use in a manual way (if you choose Bootstrap by the quick link, it will add v4 by default).
Personally, I use the 4 just to be ready for the stable version, but I had already used the v3 in the past, so I started with it and I agree with you: it looks simpler in explanation and usage. But v4 has new features such as Flexbox that are useful too.
So what I advice to you is starting with v3, but getting a look to v4 sometimes (for example, when you’ll have done a little practice, you can do something you’ve already done with v3 in another pen using v4)
Ye, i would go with v4 thinking of my future but considering most of the lessons are v3 based and i don’t really know what i’m doing yet, i’m going with v3 until i get better at it. Thank you all!
side note: eventually you will keep running into blogs, forum posts and just general gitter banter that suggests the best way to go is learn vanilla CSS (and html, and js) and pick and choose your libraries as you need them. So you might be using Bootstrap in a month but maybe Foundation in 6 and SemanticUI in 2 years…
and then maybe some library you yourself create 'cause it satisfies all your own needs!