I wonder this first learning web development through a CSS framework myself. I started back in the early days of Sass wrestling with bootstrap layouts, learning just the right overrides to bend buttons and column layouts to my will 😈

Looking back, I wonder how much this got in the way of me building the websites I actually wanted to build. I've also noticed similar struggles working other college students new to web development. Though they have the coding chops to work with React, they are completely unaware of how to, say, use flexbox instead of a heavy-handed Bootstrap grid. I've given my own thoughts on how CSS frameworks can be used alongside plain CSS to never feel tied down to templates. However, the level of experience this requires may be out of reach for some or just not necessary.

So, I extend the question to you! What is the ideal CSS experience level before using a CSS framework? What does that mean for beginners?