Twitter Bootstrap - Embeding CSS in HTML (Pros vs Cons)

Hey guys,

I'm just starting out with using Twitter Bootstrap, it seems pretty cool. I'm a beginner when it comes to web design so wanted to opinion from some more experience members.

The way twitter bootstrap works seems like you are designing the website within the HTML file using pieces of prewritten css code and combining them. While it makes it easier to use, it also sorta breaks the seperation of structure and design which CSS was meant to address. What do you guys think about this issue? Is this just bad web design practice or is it a future trend where HTML and CSS will not be seperated in the future and both structure and design will be coded on one page.

 

Good instincts -- trust them.

It does indeed violate the entire reason CSS even exists -- similar asshat BS like LESS, SASS, OOCSS and so forth further piss all over the entire purpose, which is why I not only don't advocate their use, I actively campaign against them. Developers are DUMBER for imbecility like bootstrap even existing, and much like a lot of other things out there I've never seen anything built with it that wasn't a bloated inaccessible train wreck of ineptitude.

Bootstrap is idiotic halfwit bloated bull that makes MORE work, not less. The only reason I can figure ANYONE would consider it 'easier' than just writing semantic markup and bending it to your will with normal CSS would be either a failure to have learned how to use CSS properly in the first place, or a failure to extract one's cranium from 1997's rectum, and to still be sleazing out presentational markup HTML 3.2 style.

Though that goes hand in hand with HTML 5's target audience; the people who until recently were sleazing out HTML 3.2 and slapping 4 tranny on it. Now they toss 5 lip-service on it for zero real world improvement in their code. It seems to all be about throwing the past sixteen years of progress in the trash, and instead advocating buggy broken outmoded practices that really should have been left in the 1990's!

That's why whenever anyone calls ANY of this idiotic dumbass garbage "the future" I go "REALLY?!? Looks like the worst of 1997 to me!" -- be it HTML/CSS frameworks, grids, Javascript frameworks, or even HTML 5 itself. There's a reason I call HTML 5 "the new transitional" -- it sure as shine-ola isn't the new STRICT or meant for anyone who actually bothered embracing separation of presentation from content, semantic markup, logical document structure, progressive enhancement or any of the dozen other good practices that have been developed since 4 STRICT was introduced.

Do yourself a favor, and forget that sleazeball shortcut (that isn't actually a shortcut) even exists. The only way you could crap out a page any worse would be to start taking markup advice from turdpress developers. You asked for pro's and con's... I literally cannot think of any pro's... and any alleged positives that people can come up with are most likely 100% grade A farm fresh manure that can be shot down by anyone with more than two brain cells to rub together!

 

Thanks for the reply. Would you advocate the use of other frameworks such as foundation though?

 

No, I would not. By their very nature 'frameworks' add pointless bloat to pages, defeat the entire reason we even have CSS in the first place, and on the whole are a disaster that developers are dumber for them even existing. I typically extend this thinking to Javascript and even most PHP frameworks as well. It really seems like the moment the word "framework" is put on it, it exists just to prevent people from learning how to do things properly and add endless pointless bloat, while pissing all over the accessibility.

The laugh being the nudniks behind these sleazy shortcuts (that aren't really shortcuts) will then have the giant brass monkey balls to call their convoluted train wrecks "faster" or "more accessible" -- the exact OPPOSITE of what they actually are.

foundation.zurb.com being a great example of this idiocy in action, wasting 24k of markup on 5k of plaintext and nothing I would even consider a content image -- much less the absurdly ridiculous 248k of CSS being such a monument to stupidity It's shocking the page even works. Of course with the 'framework' in question being 246k of CSS minimized you really have to scream at the person behind it "FOR WHAT?!?!?"

Ineptitude of that scale deserves a very special award -- in the same way some Olympics are special; though it's ENTIRELY what I've come to expect the moment I see a HMTL 5 doctype followed immediately by IE CC's at this point...

Though you can also tell an ignorant schmuck who has no business building websites when the word 'grid' shows up, PARTICULARLY for responsive layouts since grids are the antithesis of semi-fluid elastic responsive design! Grids are part of fixed layout thinking, the VERY THING RESPONSIVE ACCESSIBLE DESIGN IS SUPPOSED TO BE AGAINST!!!

Of course, if you don't know what's wrong with writing code like this:
<div class="large-8 medium-8 columns">

Do the world a favor and back the **** away from the keyboard and don't come back until you do. Might as well go back to writing HTML 3.2 at that point doped to the gills with CENTER tags, FONT tags, and attributes like WIDTH and ALIGN with tables for layout for all the 'improvement' that type of bekaptah nonsense offers. It's exactly that type of stuff that makes me wonder just what type of shlemiels see merit things like OOCSS, LESS, SASS or any of the rest of this "wait, you're saying that's NOT how were supposed to use CSS" shmendrick.

 

I think I agree with most of what you are saying and seems to make a lot of sense to me. Aside from prototyping, which I can see why you would use bootstrap or if your building something really small like a 1 page site.

Another question that I"m wondering is it possible to create a custom css class and shove bootstrap css classes into it? Because I feel that even if people wanted to use bootstrap, just doing that could clean up the html sheet a lot; though still probably not ideal but it's at least better.

 

To clarify, I mean using a pre-processor such a SASS or LESS and creating custom class tags. That way the code looks cleaner and if you wanted to customize stuff in the future it'll be easier. I can't imagine it being too difficult to do.

Like you said though, probably better to just learn how to do CSS the proper way, but I just think if you going to use bootstrap for whatever reason at least organize it right?

 

The thing about that is when you already have extra steps and too much code, throwing extra steps and more code at the problem isn't the answer... though for some jacked up reason it is what a LOT of people seem to be doing!

Its kind of like the ajax-tards who replicate frameset behavior to try and 'speed up the page'; when if they didn't have hundreds of k of markup doing tens of K's job they wouldn't need to be throwing javascript at the page for nothing... or the people who slap everything into a single page and use javascript to 'navigate' by hiding/showing massive slabs of the content out of some whackjob paranoia of "pageloads are evil"...

It just pisses on the resulting site's accessibility, and for the most part is just sweeping the problem under the rug instead of taking the proper course of action; throwing it away, learning to do HTML/CSS properly, and then writing a site that's a tenth (or even hundredth) the size while delivering the same content!

So many of these alleged shortcuts or improvements make more work and take longer -- it makes me wonder just what the blue blazes is in the kool aid of all the people DUMB ENOUGH to see merit in things like LESS, SASS, OOCSS, Blueprint, prototype, jQuery, YUI, grids, so on and so forth. The scale of ineptitude it took to even MAKE those systems, much less the level of ignorance on how to do things shown by their users is outright mind-blowing.

I've seen less idiotic behavior and higher intelligence from creationists


... though much like whackjob cultists, at this point I think cognitive dissonance is a significant contributor to why people continue to use these halfwit idiotic steaming piles of manure -- alongside the classic propaganda bull like glittering generalities, card stacking, testimonial, transfer and bandwagon.

Me, I go right to the name calling and plain-folks approach.

 

Now you can find the themes for Twitter Bootstrap. Better to start up development with a theme. Check http://usebootstrap.com for free themes.