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I’m a Front-End Cheater

catrina on August 08, 2018

I am a full stack developer. I develop in Visual Studio, code in C# with .NET Core, deploy to Azure and I must admit, I'm a front-end cheater. Co...
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bytegasm profile image
Bytegasm!

It's not cheating if you know how it all works under the hood. 🕶️

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theMightiestT

too many "framework jockeys" these days...

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Alexandru Bucur

Nothing really forces you to use the javascript part of Bootstrap (even if you don't have a build system in place).

I like bulma, but it doesn't quite cover the full feature set of Bootstrap (and that's not bad in itself, it's a matter of what you want to use in what case).

Technically with normalize.css + lostgrid you're good to go in most front-end projects.

Where I find bootstrap useful (and to some extent semantic ui) is rapidly prototyping backend admin applications and offering a nice baseline for other developers to do semi front-end work in a documented way.

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robencom

I also favor Bulma over Bootstrap.

But I think a mixture of Grid/Flexbox and Bulma will give you amazing results. I am using them on my own website (coming soon) and the results are great! I also use Animate.css

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Iván Sánchez

So your advice is that we all should MINIMIZE OUR DEPENDENCIES? Just because you have troubles with js libraries updates?
Sorry man but I can't see an explicit corelation between using tons of dependencies and being a cheater. This frameworks and libraries are not the evil.
The today web development roadmap is all about using dependencies github.com/kamranahmedse/developer...

My advice is. If you, for any reason have to support IE today then yes. The less js the better. You can always use transpilers but. The fact is that WE ALL can't stop moving forward just because of that.

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theMightiestT

i reach for the same tools when doing front-end dev stuff - it's convenient.

occasionally, tho, i don't. the only time i feel that i'm not "cheating" is when i have the time to write it all myself - which is increasingly rare.

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catrina

i agree. the time to do it myself is sparse, so im trying to choose the absolute minimal tools to get it working (considering i am working w/ 3rd party requirements on JS).

get it working, make it better and then make it fast - right?

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Jacob Samuel G. • Edited

I read somewhere that they are developing a version of Bootstrap without JQuery. I like Bulma and possibly use it in new projects, but Bootstrap won my affection 😂 —By the way, I did not know "Animista". Thanks for that.

I found it: github.com/twbs/bootstrap/pull/23586

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Judith

Great post! The most efficient way to develop a project is to keep it as simple as possible. The real issue you face with too many dependencies is less control. When browsers become more uniform maybe, ‘maybe’, that will change this. Till then, keep it simple...

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John Filipowicz

Interesting piece and not heard of some of these libraries, excited to give them a try.

Thanks for sharing

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Krishna Tej Ch

Bulma actually looks more neater than bootstrap IMO. Less dependency and gets more things done in cleaner and simpler way

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Ondřej Želazko

actually, bootstrap 4 is brilliant in that you can pick only stuff you want, that is you can ignore JS components. And Sass is like must have, it makes bootstrap so much easy to adjust.

I can understand that this is about heavy all-purpose solutions vs small fitting tool; but bootstrap 4 is both.

And just to nit-pick: the need to use a very specific Jquery version sounds terrible. That means the library isn't a good option, though sometimes one has to go with what there is... but it's not like this situation is any valid argument to ignore bootstrap.

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catrina • Edited

I'm sorry, but I am reviewing posts tonight and what always concerned me about this post was you did not understand - I COULD NOT choose my jQuery version. It was imposed by our bank (3rd party) who is also our payment processor.

When that version of jQuery caused a problem, I had to search for other front end solutions. This is why I made this post: to offer possible solutions that were less tied to jQuery. So that devs might suffer less.

I know there have been improvements, but at the time of this post, it was the best way I could "cheat" my way to make something (like jQuery) and complete my work despite my restrictions. I wanted to offer options to others.

That being said, I still love me some Bulma, 3rd parties come at me!

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Sm0ke

Bulma is great, also Tailwind has some strong assets to offer.

The only problem is the missing templates/starters to start fast.

I was playing with BulmaPlay and the speed of the app looks good: more than 90 Lighthouse score.

Personally, I will keep my eyes on Bulma.

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Mattia Astorino • Edited

Don’t minimize your dependencies :) Drop all dependecies and then start doing thing until you really need one. Then go on until you really need another.

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juliavii

I love so much HTML5 and CSS3 that I'm almost wanting to come back to front end. Almost.

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Ben Sinclair

You say this is "pure CSS!" but you know what I reckon? I reckon you're cheating here too!

It's not pure CSS when something relies on specific additional markup.

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Moe

Oooh I want to create a design system and this is very helpful! Thank you! thanks

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Tamara Temple

Minimizing dependencies is definitely NOT cheating, it's a hallmark of good code architecture! Go forth! Minimize! :D