Twitter Bootstrap

Reuven Lerner — Thu, 01 Nov 2012 18:11:26 +0000

Even if you're not a designer, Bootstrap is a great way to make your sites look nice.

In a previous article, I described the relatively new phenomenon of design frameworks. Just as Web application frameworks make it easier to create server-side applications, design frameworks make it easier to create client-side designs. They do this by providing predefined CSS classes, each of which indicates the width of the column you want to create, the type of element you're using, or the color and style you want to use.

It's true that CSS masters will find a design framework unnecessary. After all, such people already can tweak the layouts, adjust the colors or create beautiful buttons, all on their own, without having to use the assistance of predefined classes. But speaking as someone who is design-challenged, the introduction of design frameworks has made it possible, even for someone like me, to make a Web application that doesn't cause people to go screaming into the night.

The secret behind such frameworks is that by buying into their predefined CSS classes, you give up some of the freedom you had with pure CSS. You agree to use their classes and to use their HTML structure in some cases. This is generally a worthwhile trade-off, in that your code and CSS end up being much shorter and more legible. You can concentrate on your domain of expertise, namely software development, rather than tweaking the CSS to look just right. And, because these frameworks constantly are evolving to support designers and developers, each upgrade supports more browsers, more optimizations and more CSS classes that you can use to integrate into your work.

One framework in particular has taken the world of Web development by storm during the past year: Twitter Bootstrap. Bootstrap first was released in summer 2011, and it was written by Mark Otto and Jacob Thornton, both of whom work at Twitter. Bootstrap, which was released under an open-source license on GitHub, has become an almost-overnight sensation. Indeed, it is currently the most-watched open-source project on GitHub, surpassing even Ruby on Rails.

There have been grumblings on such sites as Y Combinator's "Hacker News" about the proliferation of sites using Twitter Bootstrap. I see this as positive, raising the minimum acceptable level for Web design, while also making it straightforward and easy for designers to extend those designs.

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Twitter Bootstrap