A Framework of Learning
23 Feb 2023
What are UI frameworks?
Before this class, I have never experienced what UI frameworks even are. Heck, before this class, I didn’t have any experience with the basics of html or css so how am I supposed to know about anything that builds off it? Now that I get some hands-on experience working with a UI framework called Bootstrap 5, I understand why it is useful and more convenient than just using regular html and css. So what are UI frameworks in the first place? Well, UI frameworks are basically a collection of prebuilt classes or functions that you can use to simplify your layout and your code in html. Overall, UI frameworks help us save time and make the website more pleasing. The image shown above is one of my latest website that I recreated using Bootstrap 5.
Why UI frameworks?
So why use UI frameworks instead of regular css and html? Well to answer that, think about html as any other code. Sure you could write every single code that you use yourself including every single class and functions, but why would you? It’s all tedious work writing every function and class that you need, instead use what other people already wrote and is proven to work. Just import a bunch of classes and use that instead of wasting hours of time writing your own code. The same is true more so for UI frameworks. It is time consuming and hard to build a good looking website with just html and css, instead, we can import and use prebuilt classes that use less time, and chances are, will end up looking way better that what a normal person would build. After all, many different people are working on the UI framework that you are using and they have more time creating those prebuilt classes, of course the classes they made will be better than what one person with a few hours can ever hope to accomplish.
Drawbacks
The most glaring downside of UI frameworks in my experience is the learning curve. Being good at using UI frameworks takes different skills than being good at just raw html and css. Just like any other skills, you have to spend a lot of time learning and familiarizing yourself with how to use a UI framework. In the beginning for me, it was a nightmare knowing which class to use, even now it is still a pain to know but less so than when I started, but after spending the same amount of time building a website using html with css compared to adding in UI framework, I can confidently say that the one built with a UI framework looks better.