Hacker News Reader

Comment by zalew | Hacker News Reader

The problem with Bootstrap is people don't treat it as a framework, they treat it as a theme. If people want to use Boostrap they can and should do custom themes that don't look like the tutorial. But they don't, they include the css/js, set some 'row', 'span4' and are happy with the result, because the navbar, forms and buttons are fancy startupish.

Simple conclusion: take advantage of the technical solutions Bootstrap provides and ffs put some work to make it look at least a bit original and branded.

View on HN

For most people's applications, and in particular for the space of apps for which people pay money, it matters not- one- whit how much different your app looks than Bootstrap's native theme, because Bootstrap's native theme looks better than 80% of all web apps normal people come into contact with.

Different- for- different's- sake is a curse on web developers; it costs more time, more momentum, and more initiative than any other issue I can think of. Get the value working and proven first, then, when people are paying for it, start thinking of how much you'd budget to make your application visually distinctive.

There are exceptions, but they tend to prove the rule.

> Bootstrap's native theme looks better than 80% of all web apps normal people come into contact with

Today. The more people use raw TB the faster that 80% approaches zero and you'll get to my conclusion.

You're right; I left out the last part of my sentence, which should have read "... and yet still pay money to".

You will probably not pull off the next Foursquare or Pinterest using Twitter Bootstrap. But: you're not going to pull off the next Foursquare or Pinterest anyways.

So think of it this way: this debate has the question backwards. If you're doing a startup for which a major risk of your version 1 is that you built it with Bootstrap, you probably picked a bad startup idea.

Agreed. More sites need to move away from the default styles and should use Bootstrap for what its great at being -- a structural foundation.

I run a little marketplace for Bootstrap themes called WrapBootstrap - http://wrapbootstrap.com/ - I just sold the 100th theme today so more people are taking customization seriously within the Bootstrap community than before.

You can also check out Bootswatch - http://bootswatch.com/ - He provides free color themes that you can use to skin Bootstrap with.

People should definitely be using Bootstrap for its technical merit and not for its default styles.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com