The purpose of Twitter Bootstrap

Okay, so I rarely make websites or blog anymore. I’ll admit that I’ve fallen a bit out of touch with regard to the latest and greatest web technologies. But I’ve surprised even myself in the amount of time it has taken for me to understand Bootstrap.

In case you didn’t know, Bootstrap is a web framework. No, I wouldn’t go that far. It’s more like a web layout framework. Bootstrap helps take your dowdy, old site and make it look like something a professional web designer might throw together in an afternoon (this is a compliment to web designers from someone who couldn’t design their way out of a wet paper bag).

So the thing that has really eluded me when it comes to Bootstrap is the power. What power is this? What power could there possibly be in a glorified style sheet?

The power comes not from what Bootstrap does, it comes from what I don’t have to do (and this is the part that took me so long to figure out). I don’t have to write style sheets anymore. That’s it.  But whoa, THAT’S IT! I used to spend HOURS (days even) tweaking this and nudging that, opening the Gimp and doing a little on the fly editing, reading A List Apart and Stack Overflow.

Now when I build a site I vow to do as little of that crap as possible. Now I’m going to use Bootstrap for what it was intended: to leave the style to designers and let the blogger/developer blog and develop.