UI Frameworks and Bootstrap 5 - A Worthwhile Struggle
27 Feb 2025
Shaking off the Rust
As someone who had decent experience with HTML and CSS, the first WOD involving UI frameworks, where I had to put different paragraphs on multiple pages, was easy for me. I was a little rusty, so it took me longer than expected, but I did not struggle too much. While coding in HTML and CSS was easy for these few assignments, I understood that they were very beginner-friendly and that HTML and CSS are a nightmare to work with when it comes to making better-looking websites. When it comes to making navigation bars and dropdown menus look nice, HTML and CSS were very hard for me to use, and I did not want to ever have to experience that again. So, when I learned about Bootstrap 5, I was initially excited.
Still Struggling
My first assignment with Bootstrap 5 was easy enough. After completing the Bootstrap 5 Hello World assignment, creating the navbar was pretty simple. While it was a little confusing seeing all the different classes and names for the classes, I immediately understood that this would have been much more difficult using HTML and CSS. It was a massive struggle for later assignments, though, and getting used to the different components of Bootstrap5 felt just like when I was initially learning HTML and CSS. It took a ton of time and practice until I got a decent understanding of it. It was an extremely difficult and painful learning process, but it was very rewarding overall for what I can do with my new knowledge of Bootstrap 5.
The Good and the Bad
While I am more familiar with raw HTML and CSS, after experiencing and struggling to learn how to use Bootstrap 5, I can confidently say that it is much better than raw HTML and CSS for UI frameworks. Creating a navbar with a dropdown menu takes more time in HTML and CSS than with Bootstrap 5, especially since Bootstrap 5 has premade components. Even though Bootstrap 5 can get confusing at times, it’s thousands of times easier for me to use than raw HTML and CSS. It is very difficult to learn, but it’s overall worth it for what you can do with it when it comes to UI frameworks. Overall, Bootstrap 5 is a worthwhile struggle for what you can get out of it.