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I’ve always been told that love will find you when you stop searching for it – stop stressing yourself out about being lonely, don’t force yourself to go through a tonne of awkward blind dates, don’t try to force things that just aren’t there.
They say that it’ll happen when you least expect it, and I can one hundred percent guarantee that it’s true – at 11:48pm on the 28th of January, I found love. In the form of Bootstrap. Something tells me that I’m going to enjoy the next few weeks – we’re still in that honeymoon phase, but I know we’re in this for the long haul.
Before I get too caught up in my new-found love of Bootstrap, I need to allow myself to explore the horizons – there are so many other frameworks and so many languages that I could find myself completely enamoured by… What if I start learning Foundation and love it? Or Skeleton? Or Toast? My heart isn’t big enough for the five of us – it’s barely big enough for two. I’ve never been so spoilt for choice.
Over the next week or so, I’ll be learning about Flexbox. And if my frantic Google searching has told me anything, it’s that Flexbox is essentially ‘like float layouts, but better’. Vomit.
When I think back to last week’s disaster, I don’t hold a lot of faith in the next couple of weeks, or in my ability to get along amicably with Flexbox. I’m going to try and go into it with an open mind, after I read through a few of the books I’ve bought on the subject, but something about it just doesn’t sit well with me.
Alas, if all else fails, I’ll be relying on the LegRoom team to act as my personal hype-group, dumbing down floats as much as humanly possible, explaining them to me as if I’m a five-year-old, and not letting me leave the office until I can prove to them that I can work with floats comfortably.
Realistically though, different frameworks have different uses. What’s appropriate for one site may not be appropriate for another. There’s definitely a lot of value in being adaptable and having knowledge of numerous frameworks, just in case! Plus, a little experimentation never hurt anyone.
Thankfully, as it turns out, I’m not the only LegRoomer who has developed a soft spot for Bootstrap – we use it on almost every project, and while that might mean I’ve got a bit of competition on my hands, I’m fairly confident that Bootstrap and I have a solid enough foundation that we can comfortably build from. I won’t let Bootstrap be the one that got away.
My key takeaway from this week is to make sure you’re giving yourself some credit. Have confidence in your skills, and even if you don’t think you’re all the way there, you probably know more than you think! And you’re never going to figure that out by always playing it safe.
I’ve always been a big believer in throwing yourself in the deep end – that’s how I learned to play hockey when I couldn’t skate (imagine that for a minute). I always told myself ‘if there’s a puck near you, you’re going to find a way to get to it’. And that’s kind of what I’m trying to force myself to do with code.
I’ll be tweeting more about my journey over on my personal Twitter (@murphytrueman) – let’s share our experiences and chat all things dev!
