UI Frameworks - Worth the Work?
26 Feb 2020
The original way
Learning HTML and CSS is required for making websites. Someone that designs a website could very much go through their whole career without using anything other than HTML and CSS. But is this efficient? Everything we do is to optimize time, coders shouldn’t have to hard code everything when available resources are present. In class, Underscore proved to be a powerful skill to learn as it could essentially do what three to ten lines of code do in one to two lines. Personally learning things like this for each language speeds up the processes exponentially. However, sometimes it can hurt if a coder is not adept with these resources it takes longer to look up the right function call versus hard coding a couple lines of code. In the case of Semantic UI, it helps coders, not stress by improving how they code. Instead of getting frustrated with the complexities of raw HTML, Semantic UI has a unique class setup that uses syntax from natural languages.
My first impressions of Semantic UI
I have no issue with hard coding HTML and CSS, however, Semantic UI is growing on me because of how simple it makes HTML. For example, you could slap together a simple website with some standard attributes using Semantic UI in no time. Personally, it feels like I save more time because there are so many examples on the web like tutorials and tricks using Semantic UI. If I were to learn Semantic UI before HTML I would probably be more adept in it. I am so used to hard coding and coding languages in general, seeing something simple like that threw me in a loop. I do agree with it being difficult but their website essentially has block code which is very helpful, and seeing how they look in their embeded examples.
Worth learning?
I think the amount of time spent learning Semantic UI and any other popular UI framework will be nothing compared to the amount of time saved with projects down the line. Instead of scratching your head, you can us Semantic UI, go to their website and look through their library of features, and decide what you want to use. From a designer’s perspective, this is an excellent tool because you can waste less time implementing elements that don’t match your theme and end up scrapping them anyways. I feel that learning something new like this is daunting and out of people’s comfort zone sometimes but it is worth learning.