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McMaster Carr – The Smartest Website You Haven't Heard Of (2022)

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Re: McMaster Carr – The Smartest Website You Haven't Heard Of (2022)

#51

Stop telling me what I have or haven’t heard. There’s no better way to irritate someone right off the bat.

Stop telling people what will or won't irritate others right off the bat. There's no better way to wrongly speak for someone else. :)

More seriously, it's probably a good bet that most people haven't heard of McMaster Carr in general, and if they have, probably not in the context of having a smart or well designed website. So it's not a terrible article headline. And of all the click bait style headlines that could be used, it's probably the least offensive. At least they give you the name in the headline.

Re: McMaster Carr – The Smartest Website You Haven't Heard Of (2022)

#52
post #11

Built with asp.net and jQuery. Nowadays, it would probably be some React monstrosity that takes 30s to load and only shows one item per page (when did information density become evil?).

I've been doing more and more web dev with JQuery recently. I learned it in high school and I think most of the new JS frameworks are probably worse.

I'm generally annoyed whe

Re: McMaster Carr – The Smartest Website You Haven't Heard Of (2022)

#53
It wrecks the back button and they cannot be bothered to optimize for mobile in the slightest. And I'm not exactly asking for some janky "fake mobile app" here, how about some basic CSS breakpoints.

Any member of the anti-modern-web-stack crowd that elevates McMaster as its shining example of how it ought to be, is about as "smart" as the site.

Re: McMaster Carr – The Smartest Website You Haven't Heard Of (2022)

#54

It wrecks the back button and they cannot be bothered to optimize for mobile in the slightest. And I'm not exactly asking for some janky "fake mobile app" here, how about some basic CSS breakpoints. Any member of the anti-modern-web-stack crowd that elevates McMaster as its shining example of how it ought to be, is about as "smart" as the site.

What's wrong with the back button there? It seems to be working fine.

Re: McMaster Carr – The Smartest Website You Haven't Heard Of (2022)

#55
post #20

On my browser the screen jumps around while vertically scrolling on the McMaster homepage. It's not all rainbows and sunshine.

yeah, must be McMaster and not you.

Yeah, must be me only seeing it on there and not thousands of other websites, using a pretty standard browser and platform.

Re: McMaster Carr – The Smartest Website You Haven't Heard Of (2022)

#56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Details?

i know glassdoor isn't the best review site but in this case its bang on https://www.glassdoor.com/Reviews/McMaster-Carr-Reviews-E372... i know several friends and family who cycled through here ( non tech) . they pay relatively higher salaries for chicago burbs area, so lot of ppl take their chances despite the bad reputation around here.

Thanks.

Re: McMaster Carr – The Smartest Website You Haven't Heard Of (2022)

#57
post #51

Stop telling me what I have or haven’t heard. There’s no better way to irritate someone right off the bat.

Stop telling people what will or won't irritate others right off the bat. There's no better way to wrongly speak for someone else. :) More seriously, it's probably a good bet that most people haven't heard of McMaster Carr in general, and if they have, probably not in the context of having a smart or well designed website. So it's not a terrible article headline. And of all the click bait style headlines that could b…

McMaster Carr is probably the most famous industrial supplier in North America. It's a $1.3 billion company that's been in business for over a century. Anyone who makes physical stuff probably goes on their website multiple times per day. I currently have 17 different McMaster tabs open.

It's fine if your personal experience has never lead you to encounter this site, and it's fine to remark on your unique perspective as someone observing it not as a user but as an admirer. But the presumption that others share your ignorance is at best impolite, and the suggestion that some may be irritated should be taken as useful criticism, because plenty are.

Re: McMaster Carr – The Smartest Website You Haven't Heard Of (2022)

#58
post #57
post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Stop telling people what will or won't irritate others right off the bat. There's no better way to wrongly speak for someone else. :) More seriously, it's probably a good bet that most people haven't heard of McMaster Carr in general, and if they have, probably not in the context of having a smart or well designed website. So it's not a terrible article headline. And of all the click bait style headlines that could b…

McMaster Carr is probably the most famous industrial supplier in North America. It's a $1.3 billion company that's been in business for over a century. Anyone who makes physical stuff probably goes on their website multiple times per day. I currently have 17 different McMaster tabs open. It's fine if your personal experience has never lead you to encounter this site, and it's fine to remark on your unique perspective…

Even if “anyone who makes physical stuff” has heard of them, manufacturing jobs represent 12.8 million jobs[1] compared to 158 million non-farm jobs[2]. That’s 8% of the workforce. Let’s double that to account for people that used to work in manufacturing or are in maker hobbies and the like. Even at 16% I would comfortably stand by the assertion that most people have not heard about McMaster Carr’s website being a very high functioning web site.

[1]: https://www.statista.com/chart/34316/share-of-manufacturing-...

[2]: https://falconproducts.co.in/us-manufacturing-workforce-perc...

Re: McMaster Carr – The Smartest Website You Haven't Heard Of (2022)

#59
post #58
post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

McMaster Carr is probably the most famous industrial supplier in North America. It's a $1.3 billion company that's been in business for over a century. Anyone who makes physical stuff probably goes on their website multiple times per day. I currently have 17 different McMaster tabs open. It's fine if your personal experience has never lead you to encounter this site, and it's fine to remark on your unique perspective…

Even if “anyone who makes physical stuff” has heard of them, manufacturing jobs represent 12.8 million jobs[1] compared to 158 million non-farm jobs[2]. That’s 8% of the workforce. Let’s double that to account for people that used to work in manufacturing or are in maker hobbies and the like. Even at 16% I would comfortably stand by the assertion that most people have not heard about McMaster Carr’s website being a v…

Well by that logic, there are 4.4 million software developers, much less than half the employment of manufacturing, in the US. Should we introduce stack overflow as a website you've never heard of? I'm sure plenty of people haven't heard of it, but I wouldn't assume any particular person hasn't.

Re: McMaster Carr – The Smartest Website You Haven't Heard Of (2022)

#60
post #59
post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even if “anyone who makes physical stuff” has heard of them, manufacturing jobs represent 12.8 million jobs[1] compared to 158 million non-farm jobs[2]. That’s 8% of the workforce. Let’s double that to account for people that used to work in manufacturing or are in maker hobbies and the like. Even at 16% I would comfortably stand by the assertion that most people have not heard about McMaster Carr’s website being a v…

Well by that logic, there are 4.4 million software developers, much less than half the employment of manufacturing, in the US. Should we introduce stack overflow as a website you've never heard of? I'm sure plenty of people haven't heard of it, but I wouldn't assume any particular person hasn't.

> Should we introduce stack overflow as a website you've never heard of?

Yes? Obviously who you're writing for matters. I wouldn't write an article specifically targeted at and submitted to software developers and use that for a title, but I would absolutely have no problem at all introducing Stack Overflow as a site you haven't heard of (or maybe I'd qualify it as "probably haven't heard of) if writing something for a general audience. It's a safe bet that most people you talk to wouldn't have heard of Stack Overflow, so there's nothing wrong with a headline for a broad audience that assumes that.

Would you object to a headline for an article written for a general audience that calls "lwn.net" a site you haven't heard of? Or maybe an article that calls Admiral Grace Hopper a computer pioneer you haven't heard of? Sure everyone on this site almost certainly has heard of them. But in the general public?

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