Slop article about a slop redesign.
The screenshots are from 2011 and the redesign took months of engineering, PostgreSQL + PostGIS with 13M features, Redis caching, MCP Server for AI agents. Happy to discuss technical details.
I rebuilt the same project after 15 years: What changed in web development
11–18 of 18 posts
Re: I rebuilt the same project after 15 years: What changed in web development
#12// > The backend: from simple to absurdly complex... > Here's where the real inversion happened... > 2011 stack: PHP... > 2026 stack: Next.js... Welp, it's your choice to complicate the stuff. You could easily keep the PHP and just add ReactJs or even better - VueJs. Have you ever checked out Laravel at all, considering your Rest API endpoint even? And why use Docker in Production of personal projects that are suppos…
Totally fair points. Back in 2011 everything was built in plain PHP, and honestly, it worked perfectly for years. The shift to Next.js came much later, mainly because we needed proper SSR to handle SEO at slace. We're talking about 4 languages and around 13M pages. in that context, Next.js really shines, especially with file based routing and ISR making things much easier to manage. Regarding Docker, we have quite a…
How is PHP not SSR?
Re: I rebuilt the same project after 15 years: What changed in web development
#13Personally really liked your maximalist design form 2011: it was original, it looked fun. The posts rationalization of getting out of the way of the content makes sense and if there is the primary motivation it is perfectly rational. But as a human user: I would like to explore the web again.
Thank you. Te 2011 version wasgenuinely fun to build. Chat by city, airport databases, a people search engine, things that made no business sense but felt right. We're trying to keep some of that. You can browse countries, compare them, explore cities, look up universities. It's not just an API docs page. But I hear you. :)
If you don't mind, I would like to link to your article and site in a small blog post I am writing on the subject of deliberately ugly webdesign (you are not the ugly website ).
Re: I rebuilt the same project after 15 years: What changed in web development
#14[deleted]
Re: I rebuilt the same project after 15 years: What changed in web development
#15Earlier quoted context omitted.
Thank you. Te 2011 version wasgenuinely fun to build. Chat by city, airport databases, a people search engine, things that made no business sense but felt right. We're trying to keep some of that. You can browse countries, compare them, explore cities, look up universities. It's not just an API docs page. But I hear you. :)
If you don't mind, I would like to link to your article and site in a small blog post I am writing on the subject of deliberately ugly webdesign (you are not the ugly website ).
Of course, go ahead! Would love to read it when it's published, feel free to share the link here or drop me an email (manuel.longo@bamwor.com)
And hey, in my experience the best blogs I've ever read were the "ugly" ones, turns out what make a blog beautiful is usually the writing, not the CSS. Looking forward to it.
Re: I rebuilt the same project after 15 years: What changed in web development
#16Earlier quoted context omitted.
Totally fair points. Back in 2011 everything was built in plain PHP, and honestly, it worked perfectly for years. The shift to Next.js came much later, mainly because we needed proper SSR to handle SEO at slace. We're talking about 4 languages and around 13M pages. in that context, Next.js really shines, especially with file based routing and ISR making things much easier to manage. Regarding Docker, we have quite a…
How is PHP not SSR?
You're right, PHP is SSR by nature. What I meant is that Next.js gives us SSR plus built-in routing for 4 languages, ISR for cache invalidation on ~900K pages, and a React frontend — all in one framework. With PHP we'd need to wire that up separately.
That said, honestly, the ecosystem momentum probably influenced the decision more than a strict technical comparison. Looking back, we probably weren't critical enough about whether we actually needed to move away from PHP. It works and we're happy with it, but I wouldn't claim it was the only valid choice.
Re: I rebuilt the same project after 15 years: What changed in web development
#17Earlier quoted context omitted.
If you don't mind, I would like to link to your article and site in a small blog post I am writing on the subject of deliberately ugly webdesign (you are not the ugly website ).
Of course, go ahead! Would love to read it when it's published, feel free to share the link here or drop me an email (manuel.longo@bamwor.com) And hey, in my experience the best blogs I've ever read were the "ugly" ones, turns out what make a blog beautiful is usually the writing, not the CSS. Looking forward to it.
Thanks ^^
Re: I rebuilt the same project after 15 years: What changed in web development
#18// > The backend: from simple to absurdly complex... > Here's where the real inversion happened... > 2011 stack: PHP... > 2026 stack: Next.js... Welp, it's your choice to complicate the stuff. You could easily keep the PHP and just add ReactJs or even better - VueJs. Have you ever checked out Laravel at all, considering your Rest API endpoint even? And why use Docker in Production of personal projects that are suppos…
> VueJS ... Laravel
It's even easier with Inertiajs