At least tried to add some styling to my React portfolio project.
React Bootstrap was a simple npm install and a stylesheet add. Already it looked better – and by better, it did start to look more like a modern website. I enjoyed using but the responsive designs did feel like they were leaning more towards mobile functionality than website design. This isn’t a bad thing, and honestly with the web app I created – it probably would function better as a mobile app.
The best part of Bootstrap was I didn’t feel as bad avoiding padding or margins – Containers and Cards were easy and natural to implement. And with only one place truly being responsible for width, I could avoid having to any math whatsoever.
However, the main thing I loved was how easy modals were to implement. As someone who once had to make a modal happen using typescript and haml with no front-end framework to speak of, I was hesitant. I’ve had bad experiences. But no, there is literally a Modal component. One with a body, footer and header! onClick handlers make them easy to open and close! Redux meant that I had everything already that I needed to display!
Perhaps front-end isn’t that bad after all? If you have the right tool for the job.