I have been working with HTML and CSS for the past few weeks. I realized that it requires a different thinking style than traditional programming. Since HTML and CSS are less strict than programming languages, finding errors in your HTML can be much more difficult. I find myself using a trial and error approach to fix problems which I don’t find particularly effective. After learning CSS, I noticed that I rewrite the same CSS code frequently. For example, I’m always creating new CSS classes just to add a padding or margin attribute. I learned previously that if you find yourself rewriting the same code repeatedly, there might be a better approach to reduce the redundancy of your code.
Bootstrap provides reusable bits of code designed to enable responsive web pages. This seems like the solution to all of my HTML and CSS problems. However, Bootstrap came with its own problems. Bootstrap made it very simple to add commonly used attributes to your HTML elements. However, I found that once the webpages became slightly more complicated, I had to resort to writing classic CSS. Bootstrap solved the problem of writing redundant code, but it also introduced some other problems. Classic HTML and CSS were normally separated by content and style. However, Bootstrap introduced advanced styling directly into the HTML file. This could be seen as a downside since styling errors could be present in both HTML and CSS files.
I haven’t had much interest in front end web development but learning HTML, CSS, and Bootstrap has given me a greater appreciation for this area of work. I do feel that learning front-end web development is a useful skill. I can use this knowledge to create a personalized web portfolio or to possibly become a full-stack web developer in the future. Currently, I don’t see a huge benefit of using Bootstrap for web design. I believe that classic CSS will give you more flexibility with how you design your webpages, while Bootstrap will increase development speed at the cost of limited flexibility.