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Some news from LWN

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Re: Some news from LWN

#21

Post by wtbob »

bflesch wrote: post #4

I've never been a subscriber of this page and I don't think I am their real target audience. But I'm a professional programmer and I have been using Linux for around 15 years. I must say that this website comes across as very unprofessional due to the total lack of any design elements which would make it more easy to consume the content (spacing, choice of font). Also it seems like they don't use CSS to enhance the s…

> I must say that this website comes across as very unprofessional due to the total lack of any design elements which would make it more easy to consume the content (spacing, choice of font).

Say what? On the contrary, I think that it's splendidly simple to read LWN, because there's no distraction. It's a good, clean site; it respects the styling I instruct my browser to apply to it; it displays just fine in links, lynx, elinks, ewww, emacs-w3m, Firefox, Chrome, Safari, Internet Explorer, Edge — if that's not professional, then what is?

The HTML is very clean and readable. They do use CSS.

Granted, it doesn't look trendy. Indeed, it looks like something from the 90s/00s. But once one updates to a20`6 style, one then has to spend money in 2017, 2018, spring 2019, summer 2019, fall 2019, winter 2019, January 2020, February 2020 — one will be paying designers and artists until the end of time.

Would I appreciate a somewhat more current look? Sure. Would I trade good HTML and universal readability for a more current look? Hell no.

Re: Some news from LWN

#22

Post by grokys »

bflesch wrote: post #4

I've never been a subscriber of this page and I don't think I am their real target audience. But I'm a professional programmer and I have been using Linux for around 15 years. I must say that this website comes across as very unprofessional due to the total lack of any design elements which would make it more easy to consume the content (spacing, choice of font). Also it seems like they don't use CSS to enhance the s…

>I must say that this website comes across as very unprofessional due to the total lack of any design elements which would make it more easy to consume the content (spacing, choice of font)

> Nathan Willis, who has been an LWN contributor for many years and an employee since 2012, will be stepping down at the end of September to pursue an unmissable opportunity to study one of his non-journalistic passions: fonts and type design.

Related?

Re: Some news from LWN

#23

Post by gluegadget »

I'm a subscriber but I don't look at it as a subscription to a weekly magazine but an investment. Enabling knowledgeable people to write in-depth analysis of various patch sets or subsystems of Linux kernel—which rarely change dramatically—ensures that, later on, there'll always be an article in Google search results that'll explain the reason behind certain behaviours in a more approachable manner than reading the source code or doc.txts—they're invaluable but a bit intimidating.

Re: Some news from LWN

#24

Post by pluma »

paganel wrote: post #19
bflesch wrote: post #4

I've never been a subscriber of this page and I don't think I am their real target audience. But I'm a professional programmer and I have been using Linux for around 15 years. I must say that this website comes across as very unprofessional due to the total lack of any design elements which would make it more easy to consume the content (spacing, choice of font). Also it seems like they don't use CSS to enhance the s…

> Also it seems like they don't use CSS to enhance the site's UX at all. For me that's a feature, not a bug. I'm interested about the content itself, not about with what color or what font that content is presented as.

Sure, but the design is objectively bad.

The article's title is repeated throughout the comments list and emphasized. The other comment metadata has the same visual emphasis as the actual comments (except the link and author jump out more than the comment itself). The articles themselves expand to the full width of the window.

Re: Some news from LWN

#25

Post by leephillips »

gluegadget wrote: post #23

I'm a subscriber but I don't look at it as a subscription to a weekly magazine but an investment. Enabling knowledgeable people to write in-depth analysis of various patch sets or subsystems of Linux kernel—which rarely change dramatically—ensures that, later on, there'll always be an article in Google search results that'll explain the reason behind certain behaviours in a more approachable manner than reading the s…

As an occasional writer for LWN, thank you for supporting them and helping make it possible for LWN to pay for articles. (I don't write about the kernel, though.)

Re: Some news from LWN

#26

Post by sp332 »

StevePerkins wrote: post #18
bflesch wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For the person downvoting me: Let's look at the article's comments. It is so hard to actually follow the conversation between the users. The article's title is repeated multiple times and has a red background. Underneath each comment's title is a full-height line with a font stating the UTC timestamp, and in the next line we can finally read the actual comment. I can't be the first person to criticise those issues, a…

Hacker News is a partially about deep, "real" tech (i.e. the old school Slashdot crowd)... and more largely about "tech fashion", entrepreneurial topics, and mildly interesting articles from The Atlantic in 2009. I didn't downvote your post... but I relate to the frustration that when we DO get content in the former category, the top comment is always a critique of website layout or font kerning or something else tha…

The point of an in-depth site like LWN is to communicate information to the readers. If the article and table layout make the information confusing and hard to access, that's not "fashion".

Re: Some news from LWN

#27

Post by seesomesense »

LWN is one of the finest resources on Linux.

I cannot read the kernel source code as easily as the great articles on LWN that lovingly explicate the details. Sometimes even the articles are challenging for me but I learn something new every time I visit it.

If HN and the now nearly defunct Slashdot are popcorn, LWN is fine organically grown fruit and vegetables.

I am off to subscribe to LWN and urge you to do so if you find the kernel interesting

They also cover lots of non kernel topics. There was a fine article on the software modifications usef by VW to cheat the pollution testing, for instance.

Re: Some news from LWN

#28

Post by bkor »

ersii wrote: post #5

I really like LWN and I subscribe - although the Kernel Development part is usually way above my head and my interest level. If you perhaps not enjoy LWN enough to subscribe - at least consider if you have any friends that might be interested or persuade them to subscribe - if they're already readers.

It is important to have good quality and well researched articles. LWN provides this for free software (so not just the kernel). As long as LWN continues their reporting in this way (high quality), I'll continue my subscription (more like a donation; don't need to get anything back for myself).

Well researched information is an important way to avoid incorrect assumptions to spread. Thereby hopefully avoiding bad decisions to be taken, as well as actions on problematic things (e.g. gmane).

Re: Some news from LWN

#29

Post by ajdlinux »

As a kernel developer, I really, really appreciate the work of Jon Corbet and the rest of the LWN team. LWN serves a vital function for the kernel community and churns out some very useful kernel articles, as well as being a decent source of news for many other open source happenings. I hope they find some extra revenue from somewhere!

Re: Some news from LWN

#30

Post by hueving »

pluma wrote: post #24
paganel wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Also it seems like they don't use CSS to enhance the site's UX at all. For me that's a feature, not a bug. I'm interested about the content itself, not about with what color or what font that content is presented as.

Sure, but the design is objectively bad. The article's title is repeated throughout the comments list and emphasized. The other comment metadata has the same visual emphasis as the actual comments (except the link and author jump out more than the comment itself). The articles themselves expand to the full width of the window.

I think you mean subjectively. "it's not in the format I'm accustomed to" is not objective in any way.
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