Bootstrap is really so far behind now I don't know why anyone even considers it as a viable option anymore. How long have they been in alpha/beta stage without a solid RC? It's legitimately pathetic and abysmal at this point.
I'm honestly really confused. I'd love to ask one of the devs how they've managed to literally do nothing while other, better CSS frameworks have been created AND versioned in the same timeframe.
Bootstrap 4 is just a sad attempt at preventing obsolescence. Time to let it die.
In a more substantive tone, I personally see little value in 5 alpha versions. If none of them progressed to beta or an RC stage, they don't really provide much utility. Why would I try to ship a product unsuitable for production? I fail to see value in a product promised, but as of press-time, yet to be delivered.
Regardless, we can simply look at other frameworks to compare. Foundation 6 is out and is pretty solid. There are various material-design inspired frameworks, and more barebone grid systems that do everything bootstrap 4 can do with it's grid system. Did I mention many are lighter-weight and also production ready?
Since some people take sense 2 to be the opposite of sense 1, it has been frequently criticized as a misuse. Instead, the use is pure hyperbole intended to gain emphasis, but it often appears in contexts where no additional emphasis is necessary.
Perhaps you could have given examples other than Foundation that met your later assertions. Personally I've used Bootstrap for years (2 and 3), tried Foundation back in 2.x days and it was pants in terms of default behaviour of its classes.
It's always looked worse IMO, and I grew used to Bootstrap's sensible (and modular I should say, w.r.t. your 'lighter' comment) ... Sass source structure and conventions, so never been tempted to try Foundation again.
I've seen a few of these 'light' flexbox-based CSS frameworks spring up, but they've always been inferior to Bootstrap 3's grid (e.g. Bulma, which has no support for multiple breakpoints in the grid out of the box).
For one thing, they're stable, have consistent progress between releases, don't take eons between releases, and provide pretty much the exact same functionality.
Perhaps the implementation is no better (since it's all just relatively simple CSS), but having timely releases is a big plus in my opinion, something which TB4 has failed to deliver for what, over two years now?
Why not just use flexboxgrid and throw a few quick base classes for buttons and whatnot together? It's smaller in size and provides equal grid functionality, which is really the primary value of CSS frameworks anyway.
We get it. You don't like Bootstrap. I love it, use it all the time, and am grateful for all the effort the developers are putting into it. Sure, I'd love v4 to be released more quickly, but since I have contributed nothing to it, I can't moan about how long it's taking.
Personally I've never understood why people would need bootstrap on a new project. Especially if you're able to use flexbox. If you have a decent practical understanding of CSS, you can write could use plain CSS and a couple of classes for various components with significantly less overhead than bootstrap. Its pretty similar to how I see jquery nowadays honestly.
With Bootstrap you can just pick the parts you need (so there is no practical 'overhead'), and most sites will at the very least need a responsive grid, and Bootstrap's (3's at least) is excellent. I don't know why you wouldn't want to use it, or something very similar from another framework.
Even with flexbox you'd still need to reimplement the 'different column behaviours at various breakpoints', which is non-trivial.
Also there's the whole other-devs-understanding-your-code scenario 'oh this is Bootstrap, I know this'. It gives you conventions BEYOND just what raw CSS gives you, e.g. the Sass variables it exposes.
Because using Sass you can reduce all bloat by commenting one file full of @imports, and it's easy to get up and running quickly. Depending on the type of site (I do e-commerce) EVERYone wants a modal, a tooltip, etc; it's much faster to just style components that have already been tested at all breakpoints in all browsers than write your own.
Well... maybe I'm out of the loop, but what's better? Everyone I know uses Bootstrap. Bootstrap 4 is progress, and I haven't personally seen anything dramatically better. There's 1001 clones, but none of them revolutionarily better nor as widespread.
"No framework" has become a reasonable alternative. Bootstrap and others got started because (a) the 12-column grid layout was incredibly nice to work with compared to the disaster that page layout was before and (b) they provided abstraction over differences in browser implementations.
CSS has come a long way since then. Flexbox is possibly a bit more complicated and powerful than .col-xs-12, but not by much. CSS support has largely converged.
Foundation 6, Flexboxgrid, MaterializeCSS, SemanticUI, Material Design Lite, etc, etc. Honestly, there are too many to count that are fully functional and similarly spec'd or more so.
I'm honestly really confused. I'd love to ask one of the devs how they've managed to literally do nothing while other, better CSS frameworks have been created AND versioned in the same timeframe.
Bootstrap 4 is just a sad attempt at preventing obsolescence. Time to let it die.