Hi, everybody. Frameworks is one of those words or terms that people really love to throw out there. The term framework can really mean different things depending upon who you ask and what they do. The general agreement though, is that frameworks are meant to make your job easier by providing code and structure. Once you learn how to use a framework, you're able to develop your sites quickly and easily without changing too much code. So again, when we talk about framework, we want to think about what does framework mean here in this class. For front-end developers, frameworks provide tools for CSS, JavaScript, and jQuery. They're these little bits of code that you can use to get an instant look that you're looking for. And sometimes an instant behavior that you're looking for as well with the JavaScript and the jQuery. If you're a back-end developer, this is something completely different as far as frameworks go. Now you're looking at code that's going to help you do routing, resources, templates and security. So this is something completely different. So when we're done here, after we're done talking about frameworks, you might find that you don't necessarily understand some of the terms that other people are using. Just make sure that you realize that we're doing front-end development, not back-end development. In saying that, I think it's important that you know at least a handful of frameworks that people are using today. The first one that I'm going to mention, and the one that we're going to study in this course is Bootstrap. Bootstrap was developed in 2011. And, basically, the reason it's so popular is because it's popular. It was one of the first and, once you get that niche, people really tend to use it over and over again. Another framework that you may have heard of is called Foundation by ZURB. It again developed in 2011 and is great, it has a lot of different code you can use, but because it's not as popular as Bootstrap people just don't tend to use it nearly as much right now. Semantic UI is another framework that's a little bit more recent. If you've been taking my classes, you know that I love the word semantic. Semantics has a meaning. So what they're doing with their framework is trying to use as much natural language, English-like terms as possible when you make your website. The next one is Pure by Yahoo! And the last one I was going to mention was the Ulkit by YOOtheme. These last three were developed within the past couple years, so again the fact that they're as popular as they are now just two years out, means that there's something you may want to know about. So, what does this mean for you in this class and with any web development that you plan on doing? Templates are really interesting. Some people build their sites directly from the template. They grab some HTML code, they change it around, and they're done. They only provide the content and they still get a great looking site. Other people develop their code on their own, but they'll go in and they'll use some frameworks to add little functionality that they don't want to code themselves, or they're unable to code themselves. Now there are things such as pure coders, particularly computer scientists and the really, you know, us really geeky types, who sometimes think, nope, I'm going to write everything from scratch. I'm not going to use other people's code. I disagree with that. I think that if you want to learn web design, it's important that you get to know at least one popular framework. That way, you'll be able to communicate with others who are doing web design, and also if need be, jump in quickly. As we start to learn more about Bootstrap, I want you to understand that it's a tool, and it's supposed to be making your life easier. If it isn't, that's okay, you can go back to coding on your own, but you still want to know a little bit about it. Thanks.
