Every now and then, we programmers get sick and tired of nudging things a little the left or a little to the right, pixel by pixel. Code is great, but alot of projects have similar requirements, and as a result have similar solutions. Within programming problems exist sets of operations that you need to perform over and over again, and that is why frameworks exist. Frameworks and APIs are giant libraries of code, which wrap the repetitive code that we hate to write into short, 1 - 3 line phrases that make our lives easier, and our code standard. Overall, frameworks are incredibly useful for reducing friction in software development, and enforcing a standard library so that adding to a given project is easier.
They do require a little extra reading, but most frameworks, especially Semantic UI, make that reading clear and available. Their documentation is often well organized and designed, and in many cases is created to teach. Lots of frameworks are made with the intention of being usable from reading the website alone, without the need to watch a long and most likely uninteresting tutorial. So, because it’s so easy to get into and it’s hard to fail with all the guidance in the documentation, the massive benefits: standardization, convenience, and guided design, make it undoubtedly worth the work.
Yes. As a result of this class, we learned how to use Semantic UI, a framework for making HTML/CSS websites much easier to write. It transforms long drawn out chains of obscure and esoteric keywords into obvious, ‘human’ lines. Someone who doesn’t even code could look at ‘ui red borderless menu’ could tell that that’s referencing a UI thing, that is red, has no borders, and is a menu. I’ve worked with other framework/APIs, like Unity C# and OpenGL, and while some are tougher than others (OpenGL…), these libraries of code make creating the applications I’m trying to create a possibility.
Frameworks are good. Writing everything from sketch is bad. The end.