The Little Book of HTML/CSS Frameworks

Introduction

Many commercial websites these days are based on frameworks, and many personal websites use them, too. Yet what are frameworks, why and when do we need them, and how do we best use or build them?

This little book explores frameworks that govern HTML and CSS (and JavaScript) code. It focuses on HTML and CSS because these are at the heart of every web project. The principles outlined in the book, however, can also be applied to other forms of frameworks.

The goal of the book is to share solid, higher-level ideas around frameworks, trading some specificity for long-term usefulness. We could analyze all the different frameworks that are out right now, but if you wanted to make up your own mind or write a framework yourself, how useful would such review be if you picked this book up again in five years?

While the book attempts to cover all bases, it glosses over some of them, too. Web development has become a large field. Also, as we’ll see shortly, framework development pivots around tailoring, and tailoring depends on circumstances. We don’t know every project’s circumstances, and so we can’t generalize everything.

Although written in simple language, the book is geared toward expert web developers, the people who decide about whether and how to use, or whether or not to develop a framework.

It has likewise been written by a web developer. I, Jens, have during my career architected frameworks for OpenKnowledge, GMX, Aperto with their government and business clients, ...