Unrefined or Assisted
26 Feb 2025The learning journey
When learning to create, the possibilites and results are inspiring. However, the amazement wears off - and quickly. The experience of learning webpage development is a journey, and while everyone’s is unique, my experience has been a rather short one. The first time I attempted learning HTML and CSS was in junior year of highschool, with a FreeCodeCamp course. I had been taking classes at school in Javascript and then Python, and was curious about HTML and CSS because they are so different in use that most don’t even consider them true programming languages. They cannot do logical operations and execute functions, unlike programming languages. This was interesting to me the first time I tried it out, and I was delighted the very first time I was able to successfully change major elements of a webpage. But my interest waned quickly, and I stopped learning after reaching just the basics. This time around, I was tasked with HTML and CSS for a university course, and similarly started with a FreeCodeCamp course. I had remembered some of what I had originally learned, and was a lot less impressed at the power of coding after having much more programming experience between then and now. Now that I was less motivated, it took more energy to make myself learn the minutiae of how html and css work together, and to implement it. But there is a solution - UI frameworks. Also, AI use.
The easy way out
The UI framework assigned for my university course is Bootstrap 5, so it is what my experience is based on. There were experiences with just raw HTML and CSS, which were a good refresher and also a bit of a bore. Multiple webpages and drafts of them were made, building up in intensity and complexity. Some of them didn’t look great - it can be difficult to use raw HTML and CSS and make the webpages look as professional as with a framework, as with raw HTML and CSS it requires a lot of forethought in planning the look and functionality of the webpage, and also accurate meticulous coding to create the vision. Personally, I don’t enjoy that process. To streamline it, generative AI used with smart, specific questions for drafting and editing HTML and CSS helps. Another big aid is the use of User Interface Frameworks, which have premade libraries, classes, and visual elements meant to improve the process of creating a user interface, including webpages. For many, this can be an additional barrier to learning and achieving, as it can become another thing that needs to be learned. However, in the modern age of technology with generative AI assistants, using a UI framework is more accessible than ever. It is as simple as requesting Github Copilot, Deepseek, or ChatGPT how to create a specified result with your desired UI framework, and the answer is right at your fingertips.
A natural question then, is why bother using a UI framework at all if generative AI can be used either way, to get the desired result? The answer is, UI frameworks provide a cohesive, effortless look to them which is worth all the effort one uses to use them. For example, below two webpages I made can be seen: one made with just raw HTML and CSS, which is objectively clumsy, and one made with the use of the UI framework Bootstrap 5, which while also based off of an established design, is sleek and professional in comparison.
A webpage I made with only raw HTML and CSS - a bit amateur:
And a webpage I made with Bootstrap 5, to copy the professional design of a local website:
