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by minimaxir 4545 days ago
When you have modern CSS frameworks like Bootstrap and Foundation available, the CSS aspect of a website is arguably one of the least complicated aspects of front-end development. (and better for the users instead of using JavaScript)

Even animations are easier to do in CSS due to CSS3 animation libraries.

2 comments

Err Bootstrap isn't a complete solution.
Neither is HTML+CSS.

For a startup landing page layout, Bootstrap is more than enough. (see examples at http://www.blacktie.co )

If you want interactivity via AJAX/Angular, you'll need to include some sort of JavaScript of course, but that's outside the scope of the layout question.

Bootstrap is javascript.
No it isn't. The majority of the Bootstrap framework is CSS. (there's an optional JavaScript component for advanced functionality)
Maybe he's using Netscape 4, in which case CSS would also be JavaScript, more or less. http://www.netmechanic.com/news/vol4/css_no17.htm
Bootstrap contains some JavaScript for certain modules, but the majority is CSS (well, Less).
Ok, cool. But Less is also javascript!
No LESS is a stylesheet language that compiles down to CSS. Javascript isn't involved at all, unless you use their script tool to run uncompiled LESS in the browser. That is only meant for prototyping though, in production it will be compiled down to CSS.
What the client sees is CSS, and that's the important part.
The important part for elorant (and me) is that CSS is awful to work with. And everyone in this thread is proving it by pointing out that you should use some kind of translation layer instead of actually touching it.
Well, there's two things at play here. The complexity of the CSS model in the browser (plus all the browser-specific quirks) and the CSS syntax. Less only solves the CSS syntax issue.

My reading of this thread is that it was started based on the complexity of dealing with CSS in the browser rather than dealing with the CSS syntax.

It does suck to work with, but it is workable if you put in the time investment to learn it, just like any language. Nothing that justifies flat out incorrect statements/dramatic behavior.