FrontPage 98: Elegant and Exquisite (1997) • Hacker News Board

Re: FrontPage 98: Elegant and Exquisite (1997)

#11

Post by steerpike » Wed, Sep 12, 2018, 8:16 AM UTC

Hmm. I'm pretty certain Homesite was out by then which I always felt was the best web IDE. Such a shame what happened to it.

Re: FrontPage 98: Elegant and Exquisite (1997)

#12

Post by SmellyGeekBoy » Wed, Sep 12, 2018, 8:16 AM UTC

kumarvvr wrote: post #5

"WebMaster". I see this term a lot in older sites. "WebMasters click here !" sort of links. What does it really mean? The term.

It used to be convention that emails to webmaster@[domain.com] would go to whoever was responsible for maintaining the website. I don't think anyone ever had it as an official job title, however.

Re: FrontPage 98: Elegant and Exquisite (1997)

#13

Post by subir » Wed, Sep 12, 2018, 8:18 AM UTC

kumarvvr wrote: post #5

"WebMaster". I see this term a lot in older sites. "WebMasters click here !" sort of links. What does it really mean? The term.

Ah! Those were the days when there were no admins, there were 'webmasters'! They were the people behind building and maintaining the website. Think webdev + ops. Nothing today compares to the grandeur of being a 'Webmaster' in 1996 :)

Re: FrontPage 98: Elegant and Exquisite (1997)

#14

Post by nocman » Wed, Sep 12, 2018, 8:19 AM UTC

hawkilt wrote: post #3

Nostalgia

It ain't what it used to be!

:-D

Re: FrontPage 98: Elegant and Exquisite (1997)

#15

Post by SmellyGeekBoy » Wed, Sep 12, 2018, 8:19 AM UTC

I remember FrontPage Express being pretty good too. Basically a souped-up web developers' Notepad.

It had nowhere near the feature set of full-blown FrontPage, of course.

Re: FrontPage 98: Elegant and Exquisite (1997)

#16

Post by logicallee » Wed, Sep 12, 2018, 8:20 AM UTC

I read quite a bit of this but couldn't figure it out: is this writer sort of mocking their own purple prose in a sort of self-consciously over-the-top way? Or is that just their writing style? (It's hard to imagine anyone reading this style seriously. Even the subtitle, "elegant and exquisite" is a weird way to talk about software.)

Do you think they're making fun of something?

Re: FrontPage 98: Elegant and Exquisite (1997)

#17

Post by pjc50 » Wed, Sep 12, 2018, 8:20 AM UTC

Oh god, the horror.

Not just the ugly webpages, those were the ubiquitous style at the time. No, FrontPage pioneered deep ugliness, because like all Microsoft products of the 90s it regarded interoperability as a threat. It produces ugly HTML that works best in IE, and it has an optional upload mechanism that requires IIS on the server side.

https://www.inmotionhosting.com/support/website/frontpage/th...