Never seen this, but here are the amazing things you can do with CSS: 26 Impressive web projects built with CSS only. | by Mybridge | Mybridge for Professionals
For making a website or in the case of Tribute / Profile, a one page webpage, I would choose Bootstrap every time.
Why?
Because itās responsive.
If you want to get into the headache of making a responsive page from the get go using Vanilla CSS, good luck! Bootstrap gives you this, hence why itās important to learn.
@lostandfound24 I had a quick look at your tribute page and it is not responsive.
Have you tried it? Itās never given me a headache. compared to the where art though challenge I am currently smashing my head against a wall at, flexbox is childsplay.
Well flexbox is CSS3 and I havenāt learned that yet! There is always W3Schools if you want to learn basics.
FCC has over 150 hrs of Javascript but 5-10 hrs of Html+CSS, so this is clearly a coding-centric site. If youāre on the visual designing side of things this may not be the place for you.
HTML is not a programming language. Neither is CSS. HTML is markup to establish hierarchical structured documents(content), CSS is description of appearance(view, presentation). Itās not a big deal to learn what these are, and only required to master if Iām a graphics designer (which Iām not).
A framework like Bootstrap includes years of experience of paid professionals, I canāt beat that by studying CSS on my personal computer (how did they come up with 12 columns? how many devices, form factors, page renderers have they encountered to create Normalize.css?). If a client requires a very specific visuality Iāll probably order a Bootstrap theme and apply it. Otherwise Iāll have to correspond using phrases like I need a modern design, it should be responsive, and fluid but not too fluid, you know what Iām sayin? resulting in lot of round trips, elbow rubbing, itās unprofessional.
Same with jquery: I canāt possibly know the idiosyncracies of all the browsers out there, but jquery does, itās developed by well-funded group of professionals which I canāt beat.
3 Likes
that suprises me, iād jump at the chance to have a recruiter tear my portfolio to peicesā¦ as it happens, I have the stuff he mentions in my mind whenever I make something (I might not execute it so well yet though) so I liked the article!
flexbox is all you need to make anything responsive (not talking about using correct images etc). A rule on the container, a rule on the item, just like bootstrap. in fact BS4 uses flexbox but you go round the houses and put the .col and .row classes in html, rather than just applying the flex rules to .myclass in css.
Anyway, iām not anti bootstrapā¦ iām just pro flex! just so you know 
2 Likes
Building the tribute page from scratch without using bootstrap is actually enjoyable, and it never gave me a headache. My tribute page is still being worked on, and it needs alot of work. It might not be responsive now, but thatās because Iām having fun building it with Vanilla CSS with more focus on appearance rather than responsiveness.
Care to share your own tribute page?
2 Likes
Bootstrap and jQuery are tools we can use for rapid development but for applying for a job you need to know the core of CSS and Javascript I agree. For that reason I canāt fault @lostandfound24.
However, I have prior knowledge of both so am more keen to learn Bootstrap and the newer frameworks as jobs are asking for these skills now.
3 Likes
We are all agreed FCC is javascript first
12 columns is not bootstraps invention and neither is normalize. 12 columns comes from old typography where multiple column widths can be produced by using print plates of 1, 2 4, 6 or 8 columns wide. Normalize just levels the css playing field across browsers
Of course itās required to master themā¦ unless youāre just going to work on backend stuff and concentrate on being a programmer, then you need to get good at these or forever sign up to the next framework.
If you can ONLY produce a front end in bootstrap or with a bootstrap theme, then youāre a bootstrap user not a front end dev. Nothing wrong with that if thatās what you want to do(iāve been tempted by that material theme myself), but saying you donāt need to learn HTML and CSS well is just cutting corners and will surely bite you in the arse when youāre in that interview. Bootstrap was originally intended as a prototype maker. It was never supposed to be for production sites.
I never said that. I said mastering.
Iām sorry, but what type of employers are you expecting to land by studying at and holding the certificate of a free online code camp? Fortune 100? Donāt kid yourself.
Very conveniently cut the word well, as in learn well, of the end of my quote. Well done.
Fortune 100, 50, or whatever. around where I live? no. But there are plenty of reputable agencies not too far away.
Letās assume you and I were both up for the same junior front end developer position at one of these companies. They take a look through your portfolio at some of the very nice, albeit very similar websites or web apps. You demonstrate your expertise with bootstrap and they are very impressed. They can tell this person can produce good websites and partially completed FCC and read the jquery docs extensively.
They also look at mine and see load of very nice websites or web apps too. But in mine, they are all unique and they can look at my code and see that I have demonstrated a good understanding of vanilla CSS, that all my files are validated, that its maintainable (and not just a mess of classes in html with class overrides in css and 7 dependency downloads) and see that I can demonstrate an understanding of how exactly my webstuffs work.
The menuās and tabs etc whilst not as polished as yours maybe, are handwritten and simple. This person has also self motivated to complete a pretty tough (for me anyway) online curriculum, AND supporting courses, (such as a fantastic data science one, link provided to me by THIS community). They can tell this person wants to be the best they can be.
Given the above, and not taking your bad attitude or manipulation into account, Whoās gonna get interview, and then technically impress whilst there?
I think Iāll take my chances and go with my plan thanks.
EDIT, just to clarify for those joining the thread,
using myself was a bad example, I should have said, the second person uses bootstrap but can also back that up with some āunder the hoodā understanding in the portfolio and at interview - which was my intended point to all that blurb!
3 Likes
I just wrote a huge post and deleted it all again.
Can
not
be
arsed
+1 to everything P1xt said.
But also wanted to add that a MAJOR advantage of Bootstrap, or Foundation, is that they are consistent across browsers, leveraging prefixed CSS and javascript to ensure that your layout looks the same on Chrome or Safari mobile or IE, even in versions that are not recent. I think Bootstrap goes all the way back to IE8.
Iāve agreed to all this yet somehow iām still elitist. I think people need to read the full thread, so they can read posts in context.
Donāt worry about it @P1xt , where art thou is kicking my a** and im probably taking it out on youā¦ My opinion isnāt even strong enough on this subject to get upset, no need to apologise.
In fact I apologise for spiting my dummy out.
2 Likes
@MARKJ78 Sorry. I didnāt mean any offense to you, - my post wasnāt even directed at you. Just trying to fill in what I saw as a bit of a hole in p1xtās otherwise very good post.
1 Like
You didnāt, not one little bit.
1 Like
Thank you for this great post. It really made sense to me to start coding without frameworks. I got into coding by reading Jon Duckettās book HTML & CSS, which is a great book. It gave me the confidence to start building websites without relying on frameworks, although that might not be the only way to code as you mentioned.
I will take your advice to heart, and focus on the project rather than the code as Iām still a beginner on this coding journey.
Thank again for this informative post.
1 Like