UI is Understandably Irritating
21 Feb 2023
Who decided to code this way?
Being introduced to web development seemed like something that would be fun, enjoyable, and easy. Now, I am not saying that it isn’t those things, but there is a lot of pain and frustration while learning basic web development. Learning HTML and CSS, the basics seemed very straightforward. Things such as changing the color of fonts, the font type, or creating the title/headers were all very easy to understand. It was when we had to center certain pictures, align paragraphs, and create margins that everything went crashing downhill.
Never use raw, always cooked
When we were first tasked to create a website without the knowledge of Bootstrap, I never thought it would be so difficult to position a column or paragraph. Raw HTML and CSS require you to use all your brain power towards padding and display features. Creating columns, margins, and navbars are all headaches to make and frustrate you when they don’t do exactly what you want. Given it was a brand new language to me, there were still multiple instances where I was frustrated because I could not understand how to align something. Investing the time to learn and use raw HTML and CSS will pay off as you will learn and be able to create custom pages without any issues. When starting, it is a steep learning curve that requires a lot of time and patience.
You are probably thinking to yourself if HTML and CSS are that bad, how do people do it? While some people are skilled enough to code raw HTML and CSS without any issues, there is something that we can all use to make our lives easier. Bootstrap is a CSS framework that allows us to use certain features to prevent some frustration. By using Bootstrap, some classes are available to you that make the website look better. For example, a container fixes the margins of the website so that its equally away from the edges. If you didn’t have this class, you would need to find all the margin width and padding of each component. Bootstrap allows the user to create website features without all the agony and pain that come with it.
I personally really enjoy having Boostrap. My least favorite thing about creating websites was having to fix the margins along with centering everything. Bootstrap easily fixes this with the custom classes it provides. Components such as navbars are also way easier to create as well, all by just naming your class as one of the Bootstrap classes. The level of difficulty is a lot less when you have classes that can format the webpage for you. While you still need to understand how to use it, it makes your life easier.
The investment return
After you put in all this time and effort, what can you possibly get out of this? The ability to create stunning and high-quality websites is a skill that lots of companies will value. Despite causing endless amounts of frustration, learning how to create websites is a skill that software engineers should try to learn. Endless hours of hard work won’t go unnoticed, as mastering HTML and CSS can find your success in the software industry.