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The unreasonable effectiveness of simple HTML

shkspr.mobi

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Re: The unreasonable effectiveness of simple HTML

#331

Post by hutzlibu »

gonzo41 wrote: post #253
ratww wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone involved in hiring, this is what Bootcamps and Universities are teaching, and what companies are looking for: backend spits JSON, frontend consumes it using React. Rendering HTML on the server is not really "the default" anymore as it was 10 year ago: it's more of an optimization for when your React site is slow, and it's a black box to most people. Even static websites are "strange tech" to new graduates…

Big lols on this, ~They think it's "icky" to use other kinds of tech in other parts of the website. Does anyone remember Google Web Toolkit when Java came to the front end. History repeats. Again and again.

Patterns may repeat. But everytime it is different.

Re: The unreasonable effectiveness of simple HTML

#332

Post by GoblinSlayer »

anderspitman wrote: post #128
bachmeier wrote: post #53

Not really the point of the article, but I've been moving to plain HTML for a while now for certain types of personal documents. It's a great feeling to open a file in the browser and know it's going to work. Make a change and all you have to do is refresh the page. Markdown, org-mode, etc. have good intentions, and they work for super simple documents, but in the end the flexibility of html and its closing tags pays…

FWIW, I started going this direction and ended up taking one step back and settling on Markdown. The reason was I realized an HTML renderer is still a pretty heavy dependency to consume my content. The upshot is you can now browse my blog with curl or netcat: curl https://apitman.com/txt/feed nc apitman.com 2052 I may switch to another format in the future. It doesn't matter much as long as it's readable as plain tex…

You can read simple html as plain text just fine.

Re: The unreasonable effectiveness of simple HTML

#333

Post by rob74 »

JonNordland wrote: post #327
rob74 wrote: post #324

Hmmm, starting out with a description of what the plebes do in the housing benefit offices. Then mentioning in passing that his "old car" is a BMW i3 (can I have that old car? Oh, he was only test driving it...). This juxtaposition doesn't really endear the author to me. Ok, maybe I'm not getting the British sense of humour... he does have a point however!

I might be misunderstanding you, but it seems that you feel the author tried to sneak in a brag, by telling us he owns a i3. Not to be disparaging i3, but it's not here bragging car. It goes for 11,5k USD in Norway.

Maybe having an i3 today is not something worth bragging about for the HN clientele, but saying your "old car" is an i3 after the previous paragraph might not go down well with someone who would be glad if they could afford a (used) i3. Just my impression...

Re: The unreasonable effectiveness of simple HTML

#334

Post by brigandish »

auggierose wrote: post #322
pvorb wrote: post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That might be true, but these ones are not . I can't efficiently read them on my smartphone and have to scroll around a lot. They also show two pages on one, probably to be better printable for some marketing material, but I would never want to print a PDF that's mostly black, because that would overwhelm my printer. I'm also not near a printer right now. This is clearly inaccessible to me. HTML, on the other side, c…

PDFs are often the BEST way to read something. I prefer PDF text books over any other format, because (not very good) computer algorithms laying out text is inferior to proper professional layout. Why would you read PDFs on a smart phone anyway?

> Why would you read PDFs on a smart phone anyway?

Is there another option here?

Re: The unreasonable effectiveness of simple HTML

#335

Post by forgotmypw17 »

tpxl wrote: post #319
forgotmypw17 wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It happens. I think I'd rather my site be served with ads, than not at all. It would be great if we could always automatically choose the right option, but browsers don't do that.

Ads aren't that much of a problem, but serving cryptominers/phishing websites/viruses is a real issue.

Do ISPs really do that?

Re: The unreasonable effectiveness of simple HTML

#337

Post by anderspitman »

GoblinSlayer wrote: post #332
anderspitman wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FWIW, I started going this direction and ended up taking one step back and settling on Markdown. The reason was I realized an HTML renderer is still a pretty heavy dependency to consume my content. The upshot is you can now browse my blog with curl or netcat: curl https://apitman.com/txt/feed nc apitman.com 2052 I may switch to another format in the future. It doesn't matter much as long as it's readable as plain tex…

You can read simple html as plain text just fine.

Maybe for some definitions of "you"

Re: The unreasonable effectiveness of simple HTML

#338

Post by GoblinSlayer »

lmm wrote: post #330

Making things work on crappy browsers is definitely important. But that doesn't always mean "simple HTML", and it definitely doesn't mean avoiding react or jQuery or whatever HN framework hipsters are complaining about this week - if anything, those popular, "bloated" frameworks are more likely to have been tested on these obscure browsers and have whatever workarounds you didn't think of. It might not even mean foll…

html3 is still a web standard all right: https://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html32

Re: The unreasonable effectiveness of simple HTML

#339

Post by GoblinSlayer »

jbj wrote: post #189

Made me think of a time I didnt do adequate research before buying an expensive flight ticket: I was in Changi Airport and had a cheap return ticket to Malaysia, when I got back I was going to travel in the east coast of Australia for a few weeks as the end of my study abroad in Asia. It dawned to me that I never actually checked the Visa rules for Australia, but just pressumed that they would be like any othet commo…

Another example: a train schedule site that requires the latest approved browser. If you want to travel, first make sure you're not in the middle of nowhere.

Re: The unreasonable effectiveness of simple HTML

#340

Post by auggierose »

brigandish wrote: post #334
auggierose wrote: post #322

Earlier quoted context omitted.

PDFs are often the BEST way to read something. I prefer PDF text books over any other format, because (not very good) computer algorithms laying out text is inferior to proper professional layout. Why would you read PDFs on a smart phone anyway?

> Why would you read PDFs on a smart phone anyway? Is there another option here?

Yeah, read it on a large tablet, or on a large computer display.
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