9 ms·

Goodbye Yahoo, Hello Bootstrap and Backbone.

42 points by jrussbowman 15y ago

tzaman 15y ago
It seems everyone is saying hello to bootstrap. Too bad very few build anything memorable upon it.
- untog 15y ago
  That just reflects it's status as the de-facto starting point. You could equally state that it's too bad that very few build anything memorable with HTML.
  - tzaman 15y ago
    Well yes, a starting point - but not also the ending point at the same time. And by memorable I meant based on bootstrap but with own "personality", not bootstrap's.
    - xyzzyb 15y ago
      Planscope has a great design out of the Twitter Bootstrap: https://planscope.io/ https://planscope.io/
      - bdunn 15y ago
        And we're using Backbone!
    - jrussbowman 15y ago
      How much of a site's personality would you consider is design, vs content and UX? I'm considering tweaking the over all colors and such for unscatter.com and chatfor.us (when I move chatfor.us to bootstrap) in order to differentiate them. I just haven't put a large focus on that, choosing to focus more on the functionality of the sites. I guess my opinion is Bootstrap is a great way to have an acceptable looking front end while you focus on building out your minimum feature set.
      - pault 15y ago
        Also, your customers won't know or care that you are using bootstrap unless they are graphic designers.
      - tzaman 15y ago
        I have visited about 20 - 30 websites in last month that were all very obviously built with bootstrap. I can't remember even one of them (apart from the one in the topic). Because they looked and felt alike. I think first impressions matter, and if a website/app won't make a good one on me, then they lost me as their potential customer. The way bootstrap is built (LESS) - it allows to customize pretty much anything, widths, margins, borders, colors... To me it's just lazy if developers leave everything to the defaults and put the website/app on the web, and "see how it goes", then build on that.
    - dmbass 15y ago
      I think you're missing the point of Bootstrap. It's meant to keep your site looking nice while you bootstrap it; to avoid doing a ton of graphic design work before you even have a working prototype. Once you're able to spend money on graphic design, you probably won't be using Bootstrap.
    - pault 15y ago
      This is the point that the haters are missing. We're using a heavily modified bootstrap with backbone, and it has dramatically decreased our turnaround for new UI features. Other than the button styles, you can't really tell it's there. To me, bootstrap is CSS boilerplate that is clever and thoroughly tested, so you know when you copy a component or a design pattern from it, chances are it will Just Work. Creating customer-facing sites from 100% vanilla bootstrap isn't ideal unless you are building an MVP or some administration panel where a custom design wouldn't necessarily improve the user experience. It also really raises the lowest common denominator for teams that can't afford a lot of design work. I think bootstrap has been a great boon to web UI in general, and I am looking forward to seeing it evolve and inspire other frameworks in the future.
    - ohgodthecat 15y ago
      Though I don't use their site I think https://kippt.com/ https://kippt.com/ did a pretty good job at making bootstrap their own (though you can't really tell the good ones are done in bootstrap)
- andye 15y ago
  My site is pretty cool though: http://in.5thvillage.com/ http://in.5thvillage.com/ http://www.5thvillage.com/ http://www.5thvillage.com/
  - andye 15y ago
    I am using bootstrap, it is good for a developer like me who doesn't know design very well....
  - rometest 15y ago
    looks cool. but there is no way to give feedback or contact.
    - andye 15y ago
      :P oh yes, i miss that... will add one soon..
  - ruethewhirled 15y ago
    Don't bother clicking on the above site, is some kinda spam link
bitboxer 15y ago
Sorry, but your site has serious problems. Just adding Bootstrap without any knowledge of at least some basic designs does you no good. For example: * The text is wider than the screen and the scrolling destroys the readability of the text. Even when it would fit the screen, it makes a terrible reading experience * Apply paddings to the left and right edge of the screen. If the text touches the browser window, it looks ugly and removes focus and call to action on it. As a final advice: get yourself a copy of Design for Hackers ( http://bitboxer.de/2012/02/05/design-for-hackers-reverse-engineering-beauty/ http://bitboxer.de/2012/02/05/design-for-hackers-reverse-eng... )
- jrussbowman 15y ago
  Thank you for the advice and the link. If you don't mind can you tell me what browser you viewed the page and resolution? I don't have the problem of the text being larger than the screen but I also tend to use high resolution screens and my browser width is usually greater than 1000 pixels. I also admittedly haven't been keeping up with internet explorer or opera testing. Actually, I don't even have a windows desktop available to me at the moment.
- kadavy 15y ago
  Hey, thanks for recommending Design for Hackers! (I'm the author)
riffraff 15y ago
fwiw, on my laptop screen the search box for this blog is straight below the tumblr buttons, you may want to fix that http://imgur.com/8i4uG http://imgur.com/8i4uG
- jrussbowman 15y ago
  Thank you for the feedback. I think I'll also have to see about making it easier for people to get feedback to me as well. Guess I'm going from personal hobby to trying to at least support users best I can.
atarian 15y ago
Perhaps you should stop using Apple products as well since Apple is quite heavy on patent litigation.
ojr 15y ago
http://twitter.com http://twitter.com is a nice example of bootstrap of course ;)

42 points by jrussbowman 15y ago

tzaman 15y ago

It seems everyone is saying hello to bootstrap. Too bad very few build anything memorable upon it.

untog 15y ago
That just reflects it's status as the de-facto starting point. You could equally state that it's too bad that very few build anything memorable with HTML.
- tzaman 15y ago
  Well yes, a starting point - but not also the ending point at the same time. And by memorable I meant based on bootstrap but with own "personality", not bootstrap's.
  - xyzzyb 15y ago
    Planscope has a great design out of the Twitter Bootstrap: https://planscope.io/ https://planscope.io/
    - bdunn 15y ago
      And we're using Backbone!
  - jrussbowman 15y ago
    How much of a site's personality would you consider is design, vs content and UX? I'm considering tweaking the over all colors and such for unscatter.com and chatfor.us (when I move chatfor.us to bootstrap) in order to differentiate them. I just haven't put a large focus on that, choosing to focus more on the functionality of the sites. I guess my opinion is Bootstrap is a great way to have an acceptable looking front end while you focus on building out your minimum feature set.
    - pault 15y ago
      Also, your customers won't know or care that you are using bootstrap unless they are graphic designers.
    - tzaman 15y ago
      I have visited about 20 - 30 websites in last month that were all very obviously built with bootstrap. I can't remember even one of them (apart from the one in the topic). Because they looked and felt alike. I think first impressions matter, and if a website/app won't make a good one on me, then they lost me as their potential customer. The way bootstrap is built (LESS) - it allows to customize pretty much anything, widths, margins, borders, colors... To me it's just lazy if developers leave everything to the defaults and put the website/app on the web, and "see how it goes", then build on that.
  - dmbass 15y ago
    I think you're missing the point of Bootstrap. It's meant to keep your site looking nice while you bootstrap it; to avoid doing a ton of graphic design work before you even have a working prototype. Once you're able to spend money on graphic design, you probably won't be using Bootstrap.
  - pault 15y ago
    This is the point that the haters are missing. We're using a heavily modified bootstrap with backbone, and it has dramatically decreased our turnaround for new UI features. Other than the button styles, you can't really tell it's there. To me, bootstrap is CSS boilerplate that is clever and thoroughly tested, so you know when you copy a component or a design pattern from it, chances are it will Just Work. Creating customer-facing sites from 100% vanilla bootstrap isn't ideal unless you are building an MVP or some administration panel where a custom design wouldn't necessarily improve the user experience. It also really raises the lowest common denominator for teams that can't afford a lot of design work. I think bootstrap has been a great boon to web UI in general, and I am looking forward to seeing it evolve and inspire other frameworks in the future.
  - ohgodthecat 15y ago
    Though I don't use their site I think https://kippt.com/ https://kippt.com/ did a pretty good job at making bootstrap their own (though you can't really tell the good ones are done in bootstrap)
andye 15y ago
My site is pretty cool though: http://in.5thvillage.com/ http://in.5thvillage.com/ http://www.5thvillage.com/ http://www.5thvillage.com/
- andye 15y ago
  I am using bootstrap, it is good for a developer like me who doesn't know design very well....
- rometest 15y ago
  looks cool. but there is no way to give feedback or contact.
  - andye 15y ago
    :P oh yes, i miss that... will add one soon..
- ruethewhirled 15y ago
  Don't bother clicking on the above site, is some kinda spam link

bitboxer 15y ago

Sorry, but your site has serious problems. Just adding Bootstrap without any knowledge of at least some basic designs does you no good. For example: * The text is wider than the screen and the scrolling destroys the readability of the text. Even when it would fit the screen, it makes a terrible reading experience * Apply paddings to the left and right edge of the screen. If the text touches the browser window, it looks ugly and removes focus and call to action on it. As a final advice: get yourself a copy of Design for Hackers ( http://bitboxer.de/2012/02/05/design-for-hackers-reverse-engineering-beauty/ http://bitboxer.de/2012/02/05/design-for-hackers-reverse-eng... )

jrussbowman 15y ago
Thank you for the advice and the link. If you don't mind can you tell me what browser you viewed the page and resolution? I don't have the problem of the text being larger than the screen but I also tend to use high resolution screens and my browser width is usually greater than 1000 pixels. I also admittedly haven't been keeping up with internet explorer or opera testing. Actually, I don't even have a windows desktop available to me at the moment.
kadavy 15y ago
Hey, thanks for recommending Design for Hackers! (I'm the author)

riffraff 15y ago

fwiw, on my laptop screen the search box for this blog is straight below the tumblr buttons, you may want to fix that http://imgur.com/8i4uG http://imgur.com/8i4uG

jrussbowman 15y ago
Thank you for the feedback. I think I'll also have to see about making it easier for people to get feedback to me as well. Guess I'm going from personal hobby to trying to at least support users best I can.

atarian 15y ago

Perhaps you should stop using Apple products as well since Apple is quite heavy on patent litigation.

ojr 15y ago

http://twitter.com http://twitter.com is a nice example of bootstrap of course ;)