If you learn Bootstrap 4 the switch to v5 will be very easy.
Nevertheless - if the only reason to start with v4 is that you have a free Udemy course for it - I personally think that it isn't worth your time.
There is already a lot of free tutorials using v5 so I would just start with that.
If you really need to learn v4 - the approach recommended by u/ZipperJJ is generally good by I would also add something to it.
Besides working with documentation as much as you can you should also try to find some practical tutorials.
By practical, I mean courses that teach you Bootstrap by building some real-life projects with it. You should search YT for "Build a portfolio project with Bootstrap 5", "Bulid an Admin Dashboard with Bootstrap 5" etc.
You will learn most efficiently by seeing how exactly Bootstrap features can be used in practice.
Try to aim for efficiency & don't slow yourself down just because you have a free tutorial for the older version.
PS. Of course, this doesn't apply to everyone - some people will have to learn v4 just because the company they work for still uses it.
I agree, but most people in the Javascript community won't. So you have to know what groups you will end up working with [or for].
I started with Bootstrap, and then AngularJS. But that all got too framework specific and I started hitting performance issues, as well as having to deal with ever-changing frameworks [AngularJS is dead].
I'm in the process of breaking away from all that and just using pure HTMLElement classes and ES6.
Stripping away
from frameworks really makes my code look like regular applications I would make in Android or Windows [C#]. I got my data folder with all my classes and a services folder with all background tasks that run. I'm missing out on multithreading, but using Promise works pretty well, as long as you don't run intensive loops in your processes.
Finally, everything related to the actual DOM is stuffed in a ui folder. Here's where I have a custom class that wraps around a an HTMLElement
for handling what happens on the screen and interactions. The class references whatever services it needs. The "framework" I'd use can be hotswapped. I'm actually using a mix of Angular Material JS [which I'm ditching], Google Maps, and my own custom Material Design framework, I've made from scratch.
I wish more people would explore the concept not using frameworks and develop with a more traditional architecture. But I think it's mostly because these frameworks were so essential before ES6 and very welcoming to people who has little to no programming experience.
Bootstrap and other CSS frameworks are basically expected of a front end dev to know. Like other's have said, you should learn how to do things with plain ole' CSS first, but once you know what you're doing, learn how to use Bootstrap and/or another CSS framework. Don't worry about the learning curve, go watch a 1 hour tutorial, then go look through the docs, it's really easy to get the hang of.
I prefer MaterializeCSS because I think it has more to offer components/javascript wise, and because you can get more creative in it, but Bootstrap is by far the most used and you will run into it at some point in your career.
I think it's good to learn the fundamentals of bootstrap because it is so influential. Even though many modern sites and in-house style guides don't use bootstrap, their layout designs are based on the same sort of layout grid system and they use similar helper classes.
So while you don't need to know bootstrap specifically, learning bootstrap will help you learn best practises for creating your own efficient layout/style system and it will help you quickly understand the markup of many sites.
Greetings, everyone. I am trying to become an autodidact front-end web dev and want to know when the appropriate time is to learn Bootstrap. Right now, I am still trying to build on my knowledge of HTML and CSS before I move on to Javascript, but I am also interested in learning Bootstrap.
I still have every intention of learning Javascript plus one or two back-end languages, but just want to know when I should fit Bootstrap in. Should I learn Bootstrap before I get into Javascript or does the order not matter much in this instance? Thanks!
I consider myself pretty good with backend stuff, but clueless with anything artsy or design related.
Bootstrap 4 and 5 make it soooo easy to create beautiful, clean web apps even for people with very little understanding of CSS and design. I'm using both for a side project right now and I can't believe I made something look so good