Sorry devs, Twitter Bootstrap isn't a "skill"

Ugh, I'm getting real tired of these snotty drive-bys masquerading as insightful criticism. Many job posts call for familiarity with Twitter Bootstrap, so is it proper to call out the applicants (or "kiddies," as the author derides) for responding in kind? It's bogus. And trashing applicants for internships is a bridge too far.

(minor edits)

I disagree with the premise. Twitter Bootstrap is a skill in much the same way as Wordpress is a skill, even if its a less significant one than wordpress.

Familiarity with bootstrap's internals, its less mixins, their sass equivalents, its inventory of javascript plugins, and how to integrate with it is a skill worth having in many situations.

The article's closing statement "make something happen from scratch" is almost the antithesis of what it means to be a good developer. Not re-inventing the wheel, learning to integrate with existing solutions, is a skill you will find among the best developers.

On its own, Twitter Bootstrap is not enough of a skill to get any job. It is worth something, though.

TL;DR: The author doesn't like Bootstrap.

The author says it's bloated and that it makes it seem the candidate's front-end skills are shabby.

If you're hiring for a project that uses bootstrap might it be a good idea to hire someone who doesn't mind working with bootstrap? How would they communicate this? Perhaps by including it on their résumé?

Bootstrap is a very useful tool in some situations. As a developer with little to no graphic design ability (but a reasonable understanding of basic UI design), Bootstrap enables me to skip a massive chunk of work on projects that don't benefit from the attention of a designer (e.g. internal portals, administrative tools).

Is it a skill? No, it's a tool. Being able to use it involves some skill with HTML, CSS, and possibly Javascript.

Does it belong on a resume? Why not? At worst it may not be relevant to everything you might apply for; at best it shows a familiarity with available utilities that, required for a given project or not, might come in handy or at least show you're open to and have worked with current alternatives to the everything-from-scratch approach that's sometimes but not always necessary or helpful when developing for the web.

[edit] After going looking for an author citation, I see this is on the official blog of a digital agency, written by one of the partners, who refers to himself as a "titan of industry."

That's just embarrassing. The ego is stifling, and the tone screams "nightmarish to work for." [/edit]

Twitter Bootstrap is absolutely a skill.

Knowing the ins and outs of how the grid works, where to pad, how to effectively use the javascript components, etc. all involve experience and programming ability. Far beyond unzipping a flipping file, as the author suggests.

Claiming Bootstrap as evidence that you "know" development is like claiming that changing your oil means you "know" automotive engineering

No, it's like claiming "familiar with the SBC engine", which is a very useful skill to have if someone is hiring an employee to work on chevys, isn't it?

Why is Twitter Bootstrap not a skill, but JBoss, Hibernate, Django, heck even Node.js, etc. a skill (perhaps I'm putting words in the author's mouth, but I doubt he'd have the same opinion of a resumé with those skills listed)?

According to this guy, you're only allowed to list the languages you use as skills, not the tools you use within those languages.

As much as I want to agree with the backlash here, the pervasiveness of bootstrap as a "solution" to frontend by managers and engineers without frontend experience who then want to make it not look like every other startup website on the planet is what attributes to articles like this one. I can see it asa convenient mock-up tool, but iit's tight couplingto tthe markup and copious counter intuitive default styling does in fact lead to bloat in production websites. I understand that not all devs know frontend well enough to rapid prototype from scratch, but in production bootstrap is duct tape andchewing gum.

If someone asks if you know it (or anything else) in an interview, then yes it is. A quick search on Dice shows over 200 job results listing this in the hiring req, including firms such as Deloitte. Hell, Gartner even lists an intern position and Twitter Bootstrap is a job requirement: http://www.dice.com/job/result/gartner/2604576300902

I had someone come in the other day with Netscape Navigator listed as a skill.

If you have a separate Skills section, I probably wouldn't list it as a skill, but perhaps in the detailed description of your job. Ex: Created websites using Bootstrap and CSS.

I hate writing resumes where your job basically becomes a bunch of buzzwords, but that is what tech employers are expecting.

Maybe people should stop putting Bootstrap in their resume when companies stop putting Bootstrap in their job postings.

The amount of times I have heard: "You don't need to write CSS, just use Bootstrap" or some variation is uncountable. Some thing that just adding a "class='btn...'" to an input instantly makes it a button (without linking the stylesheet or adding a "type=".

Have you considered that customizing Twitter Bootstrap without rewriting the entire framework is a skill?

As an intern, I don't think this is true. I had an employer express an interest in me because Bootstrap showed that I was passionate about working on projects in my own time (since it isn't taught in schools). They also used it internally.

Familiarity with a variety of named frameworks is a staple of many web development job posting requirements, and a lot of developers like to nip the inevitable questions in the bud by listing their framework experience up front.

bs article. agree with all the comments. imo, i'd rather know that an applicant knows twitter bootstrap than not. although not exactly similar...it's like saying you know how to use jquery. sure you didn't write jquery, but you can utilize it's libraries. bootstrap is like that for css and some js. why not put it in?