twitter/bootstrap — comment on commit 5ad5dde1e24f668cf9b720dd59fc2a7d4808c0b3
File:  line 0
By jonschlinkert:

(@fat and other Bootstrap contributors, thanks for this awesome project, I'm a huge fan and we've gotten a lot of value out of it.)

As for your point "I don't think that generating a bunch of unused code serves the majority of bootstrap users", I'm curious about that. Do you mean "unused in the Bootstrap examples and docs?" And I say this tongue in cheek, but why not just make this simple go with 1 column so you can get rid of all those unused span3's, 5s, 7s and 9s? Is 12 col really justified when you're only using span4, span8 and span12?

All kidding aside, just like Bootstrap doesn't apply all 12 columns of the grid to every page in the docs - you use a span4 here, a span8 there - we want to do the same but with the flexibility of tighter 24-column grid. I know that keeping the Kb low is important, but the grid is so foundational to Bootstrap. For sure, Bootstrap's docs have a great look that works well with wide spacing and large fonts. That doesn't work for many of our projects, because we don't do consumer-focused, public websites.

We are focused on enterprise and b2b related stuff; supply chain, inventory management, shipping etc., and suffice it to say that we would definitely benefit from more granularity than 12 columns. We have a lot of data-rich, repeating elements that benefit from a tighter grid - e.g. widget-like stealth analytics, so we ended up having to create our own "grid within the grid". But it feels kind of dirty, and it's a PITA to maintain if we want to keep merging in Bootstrap's awesome enhancements. We'd like to be using Bootstrap's native grid, it's easy to not use all 24 columns if you don't need them. But it's not fun to maintain a grid that isn't natively supported or possible to create by default in Bootstrap.

If that's out of the question, then maybe we can completely separate the current grid into a one page mixin, grid.less seems to makes sense since it's already there. Then maybe consider cooking up another mixin called grid-24.less for folks who need it. Sorry about writing another chapter to War and Peace here, this particular issue just happens to be the one we care about the most...