I've Been Framed!
22 Feb 2024Up until recently, I have never done anything too crazy with regard to creating a website. The most I have ever done was edit the layout on my MySpace and Tumblr webpage. I don’t even remember if I was using Bootstrap during that time, I highly doubt it. All I do remember is how I’d copy and paste code already made and modify it to edit my webpage to my liking. I put an MP3 player on my MySpace page that played every time someone would visit my page. I also remember making the text boxes a certain border color, and my webpage background was something teen angsty like “My Chemical Romance” or “Slipknot”. With that in mind, I think it’s worth it to learn something such as Bootstrap 5 because of how easy it can be used to make projects easy. I enjoy some kind of structure; I more so enjoy if I can just plug and play things and dive right into the grand scheme of things.
I enjoy customizing things as much as the next guy; I don’t enjoy spending too much time trying to figure out what to type to do said customization. Work smarter, not harder is something I’d commonly hear while I was in the Air Force. Bootstrap 5 was pre-designed for people to use, meaning that possible bugs have been squashed. The only thing to do is just read and understand what each specific part in Bootstrap 5 does. Having some kind of pre-built structure just makes it easier to work around the provided baseline and tweak things to your liking. It can also speed up the work process on projects because there is more than likely some kind of pre-built code on Bootstrap 5 that you can work around. It’s true that with the blood, sweat, and tears (mainly tears) of putting in time and effort building a webpage or interface from scratch would probably feel very rewarding. Ultimately, though, I’d much prefer my time and sanity and use resources readily available.
I applaud those that straight up build a website from scratch using HTML and CSS. I am not sure if or when I’d be able to reach that level of User Interface design or if I would even attempt such a feat. I like the idea of having full customizable control; I do as much customization as I can on my Samsung phone and laptop. I like it more so if there are already pre-built code such as Bootstrap 5 that I can use and work around. I’m not too familiar with any other User Interface framework such as Semantic UI mentioned. I like to view these examples of UI frameworks as exoskeletons; the base which we can customize the “outer mold” to a unique, customized one to our liking. I think one day I’d like to attempt making a webpage without the use of such UI frameworks just to make my appreciation for UI frameworks existing all the more bona fide.