111–120 of 154 posts
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Which is probably why most of the web now consists of SEO optimized entertainment that some people take way too seriously, e.g. conspiracy theories.
One of the worst ones is "[famous person's] net worth". People take the Google-provided snippet (sourced from some garbage website) at face value.
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With LaTeX, the document creator must compile the document , through a fairly persnickety processor (latex, tetex, or an equivalent). Whilst that may still pass poorly-structured documents and result in poorly-formed output, straight-up illegal syntax won't make. HTML has no such requirements. There's absolutely nothing stopping you from posting that in the first place. Throw something at a browser, and it will try i…
> Moreover, the commercial Web has a selection process and corresponding evolutionary path which has come to be seen as less than optimal for those seeking high-value, high-relevance content. It is in fact hostile to such content, on multiple bases. That aspect has absolutely nothing to do with the technical format of a document.
That said, and despite some quite strong semantic elements to HTML (and HTML5 especially), and the semantic/presentation separation of HTML/CSS, what we're getting, what seems to be encouraged by, and what the adtech-profiting browser vendor and driver of Web browser development seem to be encouraging, is not in fact well-structured, meaningful, high-value, high-relevance documents.
You're absolutely correct that the core of the problem isn't the technical format. But the technical format's become infected by that core problem.
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> The promise of LaTeX is that documents could be defined strictly in semantic terms, though my belief is that this would last for approximately 37.229 minutes after such a proposal actually hit the Web. I mean, that already failed for LaTeX. To me it's kind of an unwieldy pile of wierd imperative imports. I did write my thesis in it, but for the most part it was "smash these imports together, pray for the best, if i…
What would sane defaults for css be?
https://codepen.io/dredmorbius/full/KpMqqB
There are a few bits of that I'd fiddle with, but the idea of defining margins and avoiding text that runs flush to gutters, as well as defining most of the whitespace in rem & em units rather than pixels or points, is a big part of it.
Another alternative would be a stock set of document types for which users could choose from predefined styles. The document would specify the doctype, the user the styling. That could include various branding or simiilar components, but they'd be reasonably minimal.
The ever-encroaching headers, footers, sidebars, floating interstitials, etc., of the modern web really need to go DIAF.
the disconnect here is that the web browser isn't a document viewer (but the author here wants it to be just that). and yeah, html is a _document markup language_, but the problem is that it's not what we _actually want_ - we want cross-platform, sandboxed applications with instantaneous delivery. practically no one really cares about "hypertext" - that's not where the majority of value for most people lies.
>"we want cross-platform, sandboxed applications with instantaneous delivery" My version of "we" wants: a) Plain websites that are just documents with links and navigation. b) Yes browser based applications please. c) Yes native apps please as the browser is severely restricted (and for good reasons) on what it allows those apps to do. Each part is equally important to "we"
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With LaTeX, the document creator must compile the document , through a fairly persnickety processor (latex, tetex, or an equivalent). Whilst that may still pass poorly-structured documents and result in poorly-formed output, straight-up illegal syntax won't make. HTML has no such requirements. There's absolutely nothing stopping you from posting that in the first place. Throw something at a browser, and it will try i…
"must"? A web4 browser would probably use a "runtime compiled" implementation. "Whilst that may still pass poorly-structured documents and result in poorly-formed output" - this by the way happens much more often with LaTeX compared to html in my experience.
You seem to be unfamiliar with this aspect of the system?
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"must"? A web4 browser would probably use a "runtime compiled" implementation. "Whilst that may still pass poorly-structured documents and result in poorly-formed output" - this by the way happens much more often with LaTeX compared to html in my experience.
A LaTeX document is virtually never directly consumed by a reader. It's first converted ("compiled") into some consumable format. Typically PDF/Postscript, though there can be numerous others. You seem to be unfamiliar with this aspect of the system?
I’ve been steering into “just write” territory as well. And for me it’s Markdown instead of Latex. Easy to write, simple rules, sufficient formatting. Would be interesting to imagine a parallel universe where the web is a bunch of Markdown documents linking to each other. Like Obsidian, but global and shared.
You mean like Gemini? https://gemini.circumlunar.space/
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So we shouldn't have had Youtube, Vimeo etc. until W3C got around to making part of the official spec in 2010? The web is great because people kept pushing its limits and weren't arbitrarily held back by bureaucrats. Even though Apple and Google have spent untold billions to push the "there's an app for that" line of thinking, the web has survived.
Your insane perspective and the fact that it is common, is why the internet sucks. 1. Youtube is just a generic video hoster, of which many came before, during, and will come after. As for the whole "pretend Youtube is a thing" thing, I can't remember one actual good video from a "content creator" ever. It's all circle jerking and quick videos on a topic based on least effort. 2. tag has never had a single good imple…