Did you visit that link? If you don't see the "purpose or value" in having all of that functionality instantly just by adding CSS classes, I don't know what to tell you.
Another huge perk is the responsive design. Bootstrap looks great on any device out of the box.
Yes, I visited the link. And I saw twitters web design. Like I said. I already get styles by adding classes, or even better, without having to spam up my markup with pointless classes. That is how CSS works. You seem to be suggesting that my choices are use twitter's CSS, or don't use CSS at all. The benefit you describe comes from CSS, not bootstrap. Responsive design is the norm, not a "huge perk" of boostrap.
Basically, if I were to use bootstrap the process appears to be the following:
1. Destroy my templates by filling them with tons of garbage containers and pointless class attributes.
2. Our mockups now look like twitter.
3. The actual design gets done, and we have to go back and remove all crap we had to put in for boostrap to begin with.
Which part of that is supposed to appeal to me? Or is the intent to actually ship sites to customers looking like twitter and having horrible markup?
I'm not sure why you keep saying 'looks like Twitter'. Bootstrap was originally created by Twitter, it wasn't created to make every site look like Twitter - nor does it do that.
As for your other comments, you seem to have a far greater knowledge and skill level dealing with CSS than you let on. That's great for you, it must make doing frontend work a breeze - and maybe you don't need Bootstrap. Not everybody is so experienced though - and for them, Bootstrap can make life much simpler.
"Looks like twitter" is just shorter than "looks like every bootstrap website on the internet". My CSS knowledge and skill is very low, I'd rate myself a 2 or a 3 out of 10. I tend to leave the design work to the designers whenever I can. I certainly agree that a default stylesheet is quick and easy, I just didn't realize that's all boostrap is. Now I know the answer to the question everyone keeps asking me ("why aren't you using bootstrap") is "because I already have a default stylesheet". Previously my answer was "I don't know what I am supposed to do with it or why".
I've read your diatribe here and am underwhelmed. However, I was underwhelmed when investigating bootstrap too.
Separation of content and presentation sounds good, but a concrete example would be much more convincing. (I do understand the general idea, so pls don't explain it.) I think what I am hearing is that css styles should be applied to tags rather than classes, but am not sure.
I suppose your time would be better spent building a prototype of what you mean instead of wasting it here. One link is worth a thousand words. Do it right, put it on github, give it five years, and people will be laughing at bootstrap sites, while you are racking up consulting fees.
>I think what I am hearing is that css styles should be applied to tags rather than classes, but am not sure.
As much as possible, yes. Here's a good example of what I mean, although he makes the mistake of taking it to the other extreme ("you should never use a class for anything ever!"):
>Do it right, put it on github, give it five years, and people will be laughing at bootstrap sites, while you are racking up consulting fees.
That seems like a rather unfounded assumption. There's already several other CSS "frameworks" that are better than boostrap. What is popular and what is good are seldom strongly correlated.
Did you visit that link? If you don't see the "purpose or value" in having all of that functionality instantly just by adding CSS classes, I don't know what to tell you.
Another huge perk is the responsive design. Bootstrap looks great on any device out of the box.