Live data from Hacker News

Show HN: Revived my personal website to join the nostalgia

gasoved.github.io

31–39 of 39 posts

Re: Show HN: Revived my personal website to join the nostalgia

#31
post #3

This takes me back to the days when so much of web apps was tied to non-web things. Skeupomorphisms were pretty good UX, but also the fact that layouts looks like ads or newspapers, trying to conserve room and increase information density. The websites themselves weren't much in the way of a destination, rather they tied you into other real world things: family, computers systems, hobbies. They were relevant only as…

It's also become much less accessible to your average every-day person. I remember in 2001 my brother's community college in rural America taught HTML and Flash development. Not only could you learn to make websites quickly, but you were learning technology that was exactly what you would be using when working at a company. You could argue the technology is better these days, but it's certainly not more clear to newc…

I think the environment has changed because of mobile. We had to figure out how to make things work on more than an always connected browser. Also it’s not all read-only info anymore.

But even so, with things like netlify, expo, etc. creating an interactive web or mobile app is not any more difficult.

In fact, with netlify, I could have a website publicially visible without all the horrible custom web management uis of the past (like cpanel).

If all that is needed is a simple html page, that’s literally minutes of following a few instructions and you are up in running.

Perhaps the problem is that there are so many options now that we have paralysis from too many choices. But the role of the teacher is to find the right tools that enable this easily.

Re: Show HN: Revived my personal website to join the nostalgia

#32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Totally agree. People jump into extreme abstractions (React, Vue, Angular, when even jQuery is too much at the beginning) when they never experiment with the fundamentals. Using just HTML/CSS is so much fun, even better with the latest advancements, why not enjoy them while learning, instead of getting depressed in totally abstracted frameworks?

People want to be able to create stuff that looks just as good and is as smooth as what professionals are making without learning anything that they basically don't already know. That has definitely changed. In the old days, it didn't matter how _good_ you were; basically, your site was going to look more or less like the site created by someone who just started and tried really hard for a few days. You could copy/pa…

There is a reason why React pays well. Why it's a good choice for managing complexity.

But you might be too far down the rabbit hole. To use react involves learning a series of things (npm/react/command line). To use Jquery copy 5 lines. It is so easy to get started and so simple to work with.

JQuery is the right choice when you are not managing complexity. When you want a simple powerful abstraction. It's usually the right choice for non-programmers who want to do a few things. It's a good choice for programmers who are not building applications.

Re: Show HN: Revived my personal website to join the nostalgia

#35
post #22
post #6

I had a very similar homepage that is still up! I love the desktop in a webpage aesthetic. http://toxiccode.com/

The header looks exactly like a bandicam watermark... which does capture a certain aesthetic

I believe I was going for the Bluecurve look, which was the default GTK theme for Redhat 8. The first linux distro I ever installed.

http://toastytech.com/guis/rh8.html

Re: Show HN: Revived my personal website to join the nostalgia

#36

This takes me back to the days when so much of web apps was tied to non-web things. Skeupomorphisms were pretty good UX, but also the fact that layouts looks like ads or newspapers, trying to conserve room and increase information density. The websites themselves weren't much in the way of a destination, rather they tied you into other real world things: family, computers systems, hobbies. They were relevant only as…

Checkout neocities, i really fell in love with it.

Re: Show HN: Revived my personal website to join the nostalgia

#37
post #35
post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The header looks exactly like a bandicam watermark... which does capture a certain aesthetic

I believe I was going for the Bluecurve look, which was the default GTK theme for Redhat 8. The first linux distro I ever installed. http://toastytech.com/guis/rh8.html

I buy'd RedHat 9, and i walked home with that big package under my arm knowing that nobody knows what that is..a Unix a Operationsystem!! I felt like the a hero, everything was fine until i realized that i had a win-modem...

Re: Show HN: Revived my personal website to join the nostalgia

#38
post #37
post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe I was going for the Bluecurve look, which was the default GTK theme for Redhat 8. The first linux distro I ever installed. http://toastytech.com/guis/rh8.html

I buy'd RedHat 9, and i walked home with that big package under my arm knowing that nobody knows what that is..a Unix a Operationsystem!! I felt like the a hero, everything was fine until i realized that i had a win-modem...

Yes! What an experience. My dad brought me to circuit city somewhere near San Mateo to buy red hat 8. I remember holding the shrink wrapped box and thinking about how cool it was. I don’t think I figured out how to get internet access working for a month. I’m glad you’re still sticking with it!

Re: Show HN: Revived my personal website to join the nostalgia

#39
post #30
post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would've chalked it up to "there are layers upon layers of magical things I don't understand, I guess I only need to interact with them and slap them together." That's fine though. If someone learns C++ today without knowing any ASM very few people would tell them they're "doing it wrong". If someone learns Unreal Blueprints without learning C++ senior game developers still see them as productive game developers. I…

This approach leads us exactly where we are - having 100x more HW resources, yet page load times still suck ;) And simple request to webdev - would you please make your js app build any faster then 5min always yields the same, confused look - like, where in the mess of 100+ libs should I start?

This approach leads us exactly where we are - having 100x more HW resources, yet page load times still suck ;)

Load times have remained pretty much flat for the past decade despite page weight and page complexity going up. I think the fact they haven't got worse is a good thing.

Post reply on HN