Ask HN: Are Bootstrap templates useful for AngularJS apps?

Hey all,

I was looking to do a straw poll of Angular developers - how many of you find using templates for Twitter Bootstrap useful? Are they something you've used for a client/professional project, or do they fall more into the realm of any of the numerous "website creator" tools often found with most hosting plans?

View on HN

I think everyone's case is kind of unique, but my first impression is that they're used for time-constrained / resource-limited / beginner level projects. I'm inheriting a codebase where there were some templates used, and there's an 18,000+ line css file in one template. That's one example that can begin to explain why I don't prefer them. I know if I did it myself, things would be more organized. At the same time, if I have to choose between a nice outsourced UI or a terrible UI developed by a rushed coder who hates design, I will choose the former.

That's an excellent consideration that I think comes with any drop-in functionality - ultimately there's nothing we can do to control the quality of the code/stylesheet/HTML/whatever else that we're pulling in. In Rails you can get into a special kind of dependency hell like this if you aren't careful, though my thought is that one of the most significant concerns with bootstrap templates specifically is related to the general size of the template itself (assuming it is correctly implemented, of course). What do you think would be a way to improve the utility of these templates, taking as read that developer time to replicate the functionality is likely at a premium?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com