lol for real. weve heard about it quite a lot, actually - infact not a year goes by without someone rediscovering that html can load quite quickly if given the chance.
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?).
My father is a metalworker and I grew up with stacks of their encyclopedias all over my house. Was always amazed the sheer amount of stuff in them, probably saved a few trees with their website.
I've been a big fan of theirs for a long time. I used to sit and browse their huge printed catalog in my spare time just to discover more parts to consider for use in my builds.
Back when this was making the rounds several years ago, I was intrigued that they request pages in the background on mouse-over, then swap on click. I decided to do similar on my blog, since my pages are about a dozen kb of HTML, and I aggressively cache things. My blog now feels super fast to navigate through, since I've eliminated a ton of network lag.
It needs a few scripts for total functionality, but you can look at everything on site with just plain html, and it's fast.Internal search is good.And random external searches for aircraft stuff will land you there.
I was there, Gandalf, thirty years ago when they formed their first website...
Which was little more than scans of their catalog pages, and some fields. Really. Instead of getting all excited about the latest web tech, they took their gigantic catalog and more-or-less scanned it in (well, used source files, but still...).
McMaster-Carr has always been an amazing company. I was once in the field, and ordered a $5,000 part from a key supplier and a $30 box of screws from McMaster-Carr. The other supplier charged extra for shipping, and sent it two days later to my company instead of my location as specified. McMaster-Carr overnighted the screws without being asked to do so.
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.
22 comments
[ 3.2 ms ] story [ 37.5 ms ] threadhow come a company founded over 100 years ago has the fastest site - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41883419 - Oct 2024 (15 comments)
McMaster-Carr: A refreshingly fast, thoughtful, and well-organized website - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34306793 - Jan 2023 (37 comments)
Best ecommerce UX practices from mcmaster.com - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34000502 - Dec 2022 (169 comments)
Mcmaster.com is the best e-commerce site I've ever used - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32976978 - Sept 2022 (494 comments)
McMaster-Carr: Beautifully organized and informational industrial product store - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24803857 - Oct 2020 (27 comments)
https://theandrewbailey.com/
Wana buy a bolt?(aircraft), or a fighter jet?
It's been stable since the internet.
It needs a few scripts for total functionality, but you can look at everything on site with just plain html, and it's fast.Internal search is good.And random external searches for aircraft stuff will land you there.
Which was little more than scans of their catalog pages, and some fields. Really. Instead of getting all excited about the latest web tech, they took their gigantic catalog and more-or-less scanned it in (well, used source files, but still...).
McMaster-Carr has always been an amazing company. I was once in the field, and ordered a $5,000 part from a key supplier and a $30 box of screws from McMaster-Carr. The other supplier charged extra for shipping, and sent it two days later to my company instead of my location as specified. McMaster-Carr overnighted the screws without being asked to do so.
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.