I'm a fucking webmaster • Hacker News Board

Re: I'm a fucking webmaster

#61

Post by krapp » Thu, May 12, 2016, 10:14 PM UTC

TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #49

jasode wrote: post #15

>And when you publish your own HTML to a server that you control; that's fucking powerful. Autonomy and independence are central to the web. We can't forget that. >The world still needs some fucking webmasters. We might not all be making websites professionally anymore. But we should keep making websites. The passion, the freedom, the joy: we need to pass this on. I appreciate the enthusiasm for wanting to empower pe…

But if web sites were easier to make, more people would make them. In the 1990s I had friends who literally knew nothing at all about computers but still managed to hack together their own sites with a text editor and some persistence. It was so easy anyone of average and above IQ could do it. Often the results were - let's say - not that great as graphic design. But they got the job done well enough to be useful. So…

> But if web sites were easier to make, more people would make them.

Websites are as easy to make now as they ever were. HTML from the 1990s still works fine. The barriers to entry haven't actually moved at all.

Re: I'm a fucking webmaster

#62

Post by mstade » Thu, May 12, 2016, 11:56 PM UTC

mijustin wrote: post #28

mstade wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, I find the lack of under construction signs and badly alpha blended gifs disturbing! ;o) (By which I mean: it's a thing of beauty!)

Oooh. I definitely need to add an under construction gif.

Loving the sign! ;o)

Re: I'm a fucking webmaster

#63

Post by bphogan » Fri, May 13, 2016, 12:23 AM UTC

mbreese wrote: post #43

raddad wrote: post #36

I remember when bandwidth was at a premium and 1200 baud was fast. There were pleas everywhere to use simple html, white text on black. Images were links to download if you wanted to view them and encouraged only if they added to the content. Nobody was trying to make the web into television.

When 1200 baud was fast there were no pleas to use simple html - there was no html! You might have had me with 56k or even 28.8kbps (V.92!), but 1200 baud. When 1200 baud was fast - yes, everywhere was simple text on the screen (maybe ANSI colors), but more along the lines of Compuserve or a BBS. And yes, you had to download images. The best were the progressive scan ones where you could view the incomplete images as…

I had a 28.8k modem.

But my internet connection was rural, and 1200 baud. It was possible.

Re: I'm a fucking webmaster

#64

Post by soared » Fri, May 13, 2016, 2:20 AM UTC

mijustin wrote: post #41

mijustin wrote: post #4

OP here. This is a follow-up to my original essay: "This is a web page." https://justinjackson.ca/words.html

BTW: does anyone know of a lightweight, retro "hit counter" that can grab my GA stats and display them at the bottom?

Also - I'd like the same thing but not lightweight. I want a page of responsive js maps and graphs that look just like GA, but publicly displayed. I made one geo map, but it took a looooong time.

Re: I'm a fucking webmaster

#65

Post by soared » Fri, May 13, 2016, 2:23 AM UTC

TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #49

jasode wrote: post #15

>And when you publish your own HTML to a server that you control; that's fucking powerful. Autonomy and independence are central to the web. We can't forget that. >The world still needs some fucking webmasters. We might not all be making websites professionally anymore. But we should keep making websites. The passion, the freedom, the joy: we need to pass this on. I appreciate the enthusiasm for wanting to empower pe…

But if web sites were easier to make, more people would make them. In the 1990s I had friends who literally knew nothing at all about computers but still managed to hack together their own sites with a text editor and some persistence. It was so easy anyone of average and above IQ could do it. Often the results were - let's say - not that great as graphic design. But they got the job done well enough to be useful. So…

The barriers are essentially non-existent right now. Do you know how simple it is to start a wordpress/squarespace/weebly/cms/cms site?

Re: I'm a fucking webmaster

#66

Post by soared » Fri, May 13, 2016, 2:27 AM UTC

syoc wrote: post #38

Wanted to check out his root site. Not really sure if he is walking the walk https://justinjackson.ca/

Wordpress, 3+ plugins, 55kb.

Re: I'm a fucking webmaster

#67

Post by soft_dev_person » Fri, May 13, 2016, 7:21 AM UTC

devonkim wrote: post #47

dpcan wrote: post #23

I love nostalgia posts. I think all of us who were "webmasters" all have a differed "what we are now", but if everything didn't start this way for me, I don't think I'd be doing what I am doing today regardless. I remember making a ball bounce in Flash with some elasticity and people wanted it on their website no matter what their website was about. The 90's were such strange times. "Can you put that bouncing ball on…

Remember huge Flash intros to sites? I overheard someone trying to add that to a site in 2015 and being adamant that it's what people need to see because they don't know what the site is about until they have a pretty intro. I've noticed the people that insist on micromanaging everything like that with web technologies tend to not stay in business very long or don't want to do much besides pay for the website like pe…

Today we have a huge generic image with one-three words not really stating much and sometimes an indication that you need to start scrolling to actually read something.

Or was that last year.

Re: I'm a fucking webmaster

#68

Post by mbreese » Fri, May 13, 2016, 3:26 PM UTC

bphogan wrote: post #63

mbreese wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When 1200 baud was fast there were no pleas to use simple html - there was no html! You might have had me with 56k or even 28.8kbps (V.92!), but 1200 baud. When 1200 baud was fast - yes, everywhere was simple text on the screen (maybe ANSI colors), but more along the lines of Compuserve or a BBS. And yes, you had to download images. The best were the progressive scan ones where you could view the incomplete images as…

I had a 28.8k modem. But my internet connection was rural, and 1200 baud. It was possible.

I believe it, but that wasn't considered fast at the time. And your point is definitely valid - there were web page size optimizations done with dial-up users in mind. I even remember programs that simulated loading time at different download speeds.

But around 1980, 1200 baud was considered lightning fast! Imagine the jump from 300 to 1200 baud. But back then, HTML wasn't even a consideration and network connections were completely text-based sessions. If you were lucky, you had some control over colors. If you were lucky...

Re: I'm a fucking webmaster

#69

Post by bphogan » Sat, May 14, 2016, 6:06 PM UTC

mbreese wrote: post #68

bphogan wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had a 28.8k modem. But my internet connection was rural, and 1200 baud. It was possible.

I believe it, but that wasn't considered fast at the time. And your point is definitely valid - there were web page size optimizations done with dial-up users in mind. I even remember programs that simulated loading time at different download speeds. But around 1980, 1200 baud was considered lightning fast! Imagine the jump from 300 to 1200 baud. But back then, HTML wasn't even a consideration and network connections…

All I'm saying is that when there were 28.8 modems, people in rural areas didn't always see those. In 1995. When you could do simple tables, images, and font colors. I remember it well because I worked with a rural ISP to make their web page.