Was this around before Bootstrap? If its earlier versions were anywhere near this good, I'm surprised that the startup world seemingly gravitated towards Bootstrap as if it were the second coming or something. At any rate, I'm very happy to have discovered this; it's a breath of fresh air now that the Bootstrap aesthetic has become so cliched.
I used Foundation a lot a while back before Bootstrap 2 was release (honestly I think I liked the Foundation 2 default look better than the current look of Foundation 3, especially the buttons). Not sure which came first, but I used Foundation because it had the responsive focus while Bootrap 1.x was fixed width. Since Bootstrap 2 brought a responsive grid, I switched because it seemed like it had a larger community.
I've been using the bootstrap-sass gem (https://github.com/thomas-mcdonald/bootstrap-sass/) for everything lately, but Zurb 3's 'native' usage of Sass will at least make me take a look at it. Good for them!
Are there any docs on Foundation? How can we compare it side by side with Bootstrap?
Did you try the large "Documentation" link at the top?
Thanks. I was looking around in features so I didn't notice the link that was next to it.
What's the benefit (or downside) to using this over Bootstrap?
Dated Dec 2011. From the bullet-point list, they're only talking about Bootstrap 1.x, which was deskop-only, not mobile. 2.0 didn't launch till this year.
We really need an "open standard" for CSS classes/ids. It would be so awesome if we just could change CSS Files, to switch (i.e.) between Bootstrap and Zurb.
I sure hope Bootstrap doesn't become "standard".
i can agree to that. i think people use bootstrap etc. wrong. It's a framework to start with, not to finish your whole project without changing anything.
I agree as well - there are good for internal tools and prototypes, but absolutely not for production sites. At the same time they are useful and save a lot of time we spend repeating ourselves writing code for the same ui elements and patterns. I've been hacking on a framework like these, but that's flexible and modular, so you can break it down and customize it as much as you need. I've used this in several production websites for large companies and you wouldn't even know it was there. Working on documentation : )
I think something like Bootstrap is fine for any "web app"; working with a "standard" takes care of a lot of the details, and saves a hell of a lot of time. Maybe it's many years of Windows development, but it's kind of nice working to a Common User Interface.
With CSS pre-processors like Sass, you can use semantic classes and IDs (instead of, e.g. .span-4) and extend them with the rules you need from the framework. Doing this makes switching frameworks easier, makes your markup more meaningful, and reduces network overhead as you can just send the stuff you're actually using.
I just got back from the launch party. Apparently Bootstrap was based on an internal ZURB project.