When I first decided to try building a site, I decided that I would use Bootstrap. I’d used bits of it in Codecademy tutorials, and actually, I quite like it. If you don’t know much about Bootstrap it’s a front-end framework and it can help making responsive websites a lot easier, and a lot faster, than going it on your own.

I said it was easier, right?

I tend to not do things the easy way sometimes. [some people I know would argue that it’s more like most of the time, or just laugh.] When I decided to make my site responsive, I also changed my mind and decided not to use Bootstrap.

One of my friends has told me that the vast majority of the sites that she works with use a front-end framework of some description, so it would be good to get experience working with them. Realistically though, the only thing that I wanted to make use of from Bootstrap was the responsive grid system, which is actually fairly easy to create using <div>s and @media queries. It also means I can spend more time concentrating on learning about css, instead of trying to learn how to use something else as well.

I’m keen to learn more about how to use Bootstrap effectively, I really think it’s a good tool, but I’m going to keep building this site with the bare minimum for now.

It’d be great to hear how other people feel about using front-end frameworks. If you use them, how do you decide when?