> Here's a pro tip from a seasoned veteran of web development: if you want to do something really remarkable on a computer, you don't write it in HTML. You write it in C.
There's a hot new technology for accomplishing this called the Common Gateway Interface. Apache has an experimental new module that supports this, but I'd wait to see if this mod_cgi thing sticks around for a while before relying on it.
You crunch data on the backend in C. Output the results in HTML. Sounds good to me. We all use PHP, Ruby, or Python for the back end. I see nothing wrong with using C if you're good at it - well written C is faster.
I've seen too many people's solution for a problem is to throw Javascript libraries at it with no regard for page load times. Or want to use something flashy and sexy without a reason that improves ROI. They just want it to be sexy.
I love the idea of simplifying until all that is left is the bare minimum to get the job done.
Yeah I am skeptical myself, but this isn't definite proof that the site isn't as old as he says, just could mean IA-Archive bot was blocked from indexing up to 2009...
> Think about all the most popular, successful web sites. Google. Craigslist. YouTube. Facebook. Twitter. Even Apple's company site. What do they all have in common? Text and the occasional image. There's no animation, video, color backgrounds, textures, window decorations, animated drop-down menus, ambient sound, background music, gimmicks, gizmos or gew-gaws. They are all simple and functional, and those six web sites together represent about a trillion dollars in value.
With the exception of Craigslist, all of the sites he lists are complex web applications.
The author conflates shiny gimmicks and modern web technology.
Especially with the heavy cat home page having a youtube video on it.
Besides the slight hypocrisy, I understand the point the author is trying to get off as simplify simplify simplify. When you have been doing it for as long as he has, seems like the natural progression.
> I understand the point the author is trying to get off as simplify simplify simplify
That's not actually the point. The point is that the author wants to be seen as a badass iconoclast. Unfortunately, he (or she) has no actual valid ideas, so he's joined a cargo cult of simplicity-worship, as if eschewing everything complex in a web design automatically makes it good.
The points made are hilariously ignorant. The argument about how it was dumb of people to make Doom for DOS because "DOS wasn't designed for that" is jaw-dropping. Claiming that you should write all web stuff in C, OMG. The defensive explanation about why they build sites with Flash. Oh wait, I just figured it out. These guys are Flash developers and nobody wants Flash these days, so they're flailing, trying to explain why modern web development practices are no good, but sites that consist solely of a Flash widget are totally where it's at. All is clear now.
Ah come on. He does have a bit of a point. Sure youtube has videos. Excepting the page that actually plays a single video he does have a point. There's exactly one piece of somewhat moving interface in the entire site. Like in windows 3.1 (and they were hardly the first to do that). The rest is text and a grid of images. Even the most advanced websites are not much better. I mean I love how google has used moving gifs in the google.com/photos stuff to actually show something moving, but that's about as advanced as interfaces get. In some ways, including what can be done with interfaces, the web is only at the level desktop interfaces were at 10 years ago.
I think the author of the article wants to compare that to, say, the starcraft menu interface. Or windows desktop applications. Or, to a lesser extent, flash interfaces. This would be a good example. Can you imagine doing this in HTML ? http://demo.northkingdom.com/gettheglass/
And he does have a point. Recreating the starcraft interface in HTML5+CSS+Javascript is possible of course. In the same sense that you can write windows 95 in pure lambda calculus (frankly, I think the lambda calculus rewrite would be easier since there's translation tools).
I'm with the rest of the people here. Those fancy interfaces have little function, don't interact well with the rest of the world (e.g. search engines, content aggregators, ...), they're accessibility nightmares, ... But they're cool. But my opinion on them has exceptions : for some things, like games, that's more important than all those other things.
> There's exactly one piece of somewhat moving interface in the entire site. [(YouTube)]
You are making the exact same mistake he is. You are picturing what you remember of YouTube and in your recollection, it is simple. This is because they have done a reasonable job of using a simple design, not because they have avoided "moving" things. Go look and you will find plenty of menus, tabs, comments, and other ui elements that are built of the exact stuff he says is worthless. Holding any of these sites up as an example of being essentially just text and a few images just indicates that you don't have much of an eye for detail.
I'm not claiming the youtube interface is not functional, I'm claiming it's ugly. It's not about whether interface elements are animated or not (I am criticizing however how hard it is to make them move). And I understand us techies like a really simple design. The difference is that I don't see the world as sharing my opinion. Simple websites are good for various technical reasons, and I understand that. Scraping them (not that ggl makes it easy), interacting, using the website as an API, all things that matter to techies.
But let's be honest : they're ugly. Youtube, for example looks like an ancient file manager, at best.
Let's compare, a native application with a -somewhat- similar purpose versus youtube.
The sad part is, that you're right about Youtube as compared to some of it's online alternatives. Compared to those, it's not bad. But the whole point was to criticize online development tools like HTML and Javascript, as compared to offline ones. Flash versus HTML and the quality of interfaces they enable.
I would even go so far as saying that, when it comes to native apps XBMC and TiVo count as "good". They don't quite match my standards for "great" at all. Youtube ... euhm ... is at the level where I'd have trouble accepting it from a first-year programming student. Certainly wouldn't merit an A.
> But let's be honest : they're ugly. Youtube, for example looks like an ancient file manager, at best.
I'm not entirely sure what you're trying to say, but it seems fairly obvious you don't agree with the OP's crazy pronouncement that websites should just be text and a few images. We may be in one of those "violent agreement" situations, so I'm just going to call this argument done. :)
Twitter and Facebook front ends have as much complexity as any fancy gizmo FWA site. And took even more work to get right, because most fancy gizmo sites are throwaway internet flyers, see them once and forget. If they flop it's no big deal. It's also why they get shut down, after the promotion they have no useful traffic, so no one even bothers to pay for hosting.
I agree with their philosophical principle though, a content site shouldn't be as complex as an application, but they often are.
Not only are entire paragraphs completely factually inaccurate, this is just fucking stupid:
"use that ancient technology called a bookmark."
Sure, I'll add yours to the 6000 other bookmarks I have, along with the 6 other sites that I try to check regularly because they have updates but don't use RSS.
This is so smug and arrogant and not nearly as justified as they seem to think it is. I guess I'm going to be that guy, but this goes in /r/cringe, not on Hacker News.
>I have decided after 20 years that I'm tired of trying to make the web site equivalent of DOOM. HTML is text and the occasional image. Text and the occasional image. That's it.
So he's just like the other ignorant masses that come on HN and act like HTML hasn't progressed since HTML4 because they can't be fucking bothered to understand that things like WebComponents are coming and are already usable and that it's just mind-numbingly stupid to the rest of us "in the known" when you make uninformed, dated arguments like this.
Between the meme responses ("cool story bro" etc) and the misunderstandings, this has to be the lowest value HN comment thread ever. It's like I'm reading 9gag.
For a site were tons of people speak of the value of simplicity, and every other day they "Show HN" their own "static site generator", it's surprising how many people do NOT get his message.
First, he is not a web developer. He is a busines owner that also had to create a site for his business. He chose to follow the KISS principle, and that's what he advocates: catering to content first, fancy stuff second (or never at all).
The peripheral details to his post (if he personally uses Flash for some stuff but you don't like it, or if he has a line about coding important apps in C and you disagree) don't matter.
What matters is that for content websites --which makes most of them out there, including all blogs and brochure-ware sites --, his advice is spot on.
As for his website "looking like crap" (as 1-2 people comment below). That's the whole point. As long as it gets the job done he doesn't care. And it's not worse than Hacker News (no paragon of great web design) or Paul Graham's site.
Would you rather read PGs eassays in his website, or some moron's zero-content marketing fluff on a great looking, fancy-ass website, with CSS 3D transforms and the whole works?
> Would you rather read PGs eassays in his website, or some moron's zero-content marketing fluff on a great looking, fancy-ass website, with CSS 3D transforms and the whole works?
I'd rather read PGs essays on a great looking, fancy-ass website. Why the false dichotomy?
>I'd rather read PGs essays on a great looking, fancy-ass website. Why the false dichotomy?
Because real life is full of dichotomies, and they are not all false. They even exist in our profession -- we call them "engineering tradeoffs".
Have you seen many "fancy-ass websites" with great essay content?
Perhaps you can find 1 or 2. I doubt you can find 10. There's a reason for that too. Most of the good writers I've read value simplicity, both in their writing and in their presentation. And, as they believe in the value of their content, they see no need to dress it on a "fancy-ass website".
That's what the whole "content first" / "minimalism" etc movement has been all about, from the 37 Signals blog to the emergence in our community of stuff like Jekyll.
And I don't see what the fancy-assness of the website would add to PG's essays. Care to enlighten me?
> Because real life is full of dichotomies, and they are not all false.
That doesn't justify the specific dichotomy you presented. Nor does the general lack of (vaguely defined) "fancy-ass" websites with good content.
In my opinion 37signals has a "fancy-ass" blog with solid content. It has a clean, pleasing look, displays well on mobile and browsers, and even provides a search interface. PG's essays could be better presented in all of these respects.
Maybe we should get your definition of "fancy-ass" so we can decide what we're even talking about.
>That doesn't justify the specific dichotomy you presented. Nor does the general lack of (vaguely defined) "fancy-ass" websites with good content.
Well, I'm a pragmatist. If I observe a "general lack" of a certain combination of things ("fancy ass websites" with "good content") I assume there's a reason for that.
It doesn't even matter if the connection is casual. It's enough that it exists, because that means that the presense of one ("fancy-assenss") is enough to predict with good success the lack of the other ("good content").
>In my opinion 37signals has a "fancy-ass" blog with solid content.
I see nothing fancy ass about 37signal's block. It's "clean, pleasing and displays well on mobile and broswers" not by some fancy-assness, but because it's minimal and bare-bones -- the very opposite of fancy-assents.
Essentially it's merely styled text.
>Maybe we should get your definition of "fancy-ass" so we can decide what we're even talking about.
Well, if we go by TFA's description, that would be anything that couldn't be achieved with HTML 4 and no JS.
Did you even read the thing or are you just giving the sermon for the upvotes?
"Here's a pro tip from a seasoned veteran of web development: if you want to do something really remarkable on a computer, you don't write it in HTML. You write it in C."
>Did you even read the thing or are you just giving the sermon for the upvotes?
I've have finished high school since a long time. I don't write stuff to get "upvotes".
>"Here's a pro tip from a seasoned veteran of web development: if you want to do something really remarkable on a computer, you don't write it in HTML. You write it in C."
Gee, perhaps I've adreesed that, maybe in the part were I write specifically: "The peripheral details to his post [like] if he has a line about coding important apps in C and you disagree, don't matter".
Not only it doesn't matter (in the context of his actual message, with is about another thing altogether), but I agree with him.
95% of the important stuff we use to get amazing stuff done is written in C/C++. From our OSs and Word Processors, to Photoshop and our Browser. Heck, even Google Search is done in C++, and even Facebook had to create a C++ PHP VM to handle the amazing volume of data they do.
Seen any web stuff that's much more than "let's recreate stuff we had on desktop (See: Atwood's Law) with easier deployment but crappier performance and usability"?
And, more importantly, that doesn't depend of a huge stack of C/C++ code underneath? (From the JS JIT to the browser, to WebGL, to the OS down to the TCP/IP Stack).
Your first point was that we should give the dude a break because he isn't a developer - but the guy is actually saying we're all n00bs wasting our lives.
If his underlying point is just "simple is best," then I think we all agree. But he goes on with a tone of distaste about the state of the web, as though everyone is just stuffing their sites with flashy gimmicks these days. Sorry, this isn't 1999.
Also, sites like Facebook, Google, etc. have done some pretty amazing stuff with this web platform, going well beyond what it was originally intended and "text and images." Has he ever looked at Google Docs?
I did, and still prefer to use a Desktop Office Suite. For the far better responsiveness, tons more features (I do use), and lack of dependence of Google.
There's nothing wrong with simple and functional. But simple doesn't have to be dated and ugly, which is what his website is. Also this post made him come off as a bit of a douchebag about it.
It's ironic because all the websites he listed (with the exception of Craigslist) have incredibly complex front-ends.
There are some very good reasons why modern designers don't use background music. Elements don't blink and strobe like they did in the 90s. The time for skeuomorphic visual design is over. We've learned from our mistakes. Instead, we embrace technologies that help convey the site's meaning and purpose to the user.
Sometimes that takes the form of a fancy JS single-page scroll (http://www.apple.com/iphone-5s/) to give a more natural flow to a traditional sales funnel. Sometimes that means robust streaming video (https://developers.google.com/youtube/), so people can watch live music or election coverage from home. Sometimes, it's adding a Leaflet map widget to one of the most design-conservative sites on the web (https://twitter.com/LeafletJS/status/240820008605851648) to help people find new apartments. All of these sites are elegant and work as expected, and they rely on far more than HTML4 and inline style tags to do so.
I can understand where he's coming from. I've always been amazed at how carried away people can get with the their web designs and applications. Several typefaces, a ginormous color palette, skeuomorphic stuff, wizzbang doo-dads, unnecessary libraries, the list goes on.
I can appreciate a well-designed and well-built site. One that pays attention to hierarchy and how the information is presented with an eye toward performance and scalability. I always find that my favorite sites are the ones that seem to take Edgar Allen Poe's advice for writing a short story. Every component has a reason for being there (i.e., it is functional). If the component or element's purpose is to be there for the sake of simply being there (it just looks cool!), then it shouldn't exist.
I suppose that's minimalism. But oftentimes, minimalism goes against what people think of in terms of "creating an experience." Most of the time when I visit a website that creates an experience, I am left with a sour taste in my mouth.
This is the most bizarre thing I have ever seen to reach 50 votes on HN. Who is upvoting this?!
I can't even figure out the point of it all, between the tangential boasting of being one of the first sites on the web (is this even true?), saying to write in C instead of HTML (is he programming-illiterate?), rants about how bad "background music, gimmicks" are and then boasts that their site will use Flash because it will "make our graphics, music, voices and games look and sound good".
This doesn't even look like satire, it's complete nonsense as far as I can tell.
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[ 5.0 ms ] story [ 133 ms ] threadWTF?
I love the idea of simplifying until all that is left is the bare minimum to get the job done.
How can someone simplify with so little understanding of the subject matter?
I think the author forgot to check out the noted companies' other web properties...
What?
Edit:: oldest Archive.org entry for this domain is 2009; http://web.archive.org/web/20090213172323/http://www.heavyca...
With the exception of Craigslist, all of the sites he lists are complex web applications.
The author conflates shiny gimmicks and modern web technology.
Besides the slight hypocrisy, I understand the point the author is trying to get off as simplify simplify simplify. When you have been doing it for as long as he has, seems like the natural progression.
That's not actually the point. The point is that the author wants to be seen as a badass iconoclast. Unfortunately, he (or she) has no actual valid ideas, so he's joined a cargo cult of simplicity-worship, as if eschewing everything complex in a web design automatically makes it good.
The points made are hilariously ignorant. The argument about how it was dumb of people to make Doom for DOS because "DOS wasn't designed for that" is jaw-dropping. Claiming that you should write all web stuff in C, OMG. The defensive explanation about why they build sites with Flash. Oh wait, I just figured it out. These guys are Flash developers and nobody wants Flash these days, so they're flailing, trying to explain why modern web development practices are no good, but sites that consist solely of a Flash widget are totally where it's at. All is clear now.
I think the author of the article wants to compare that to, say, the starcraft menu interface. Or windows desktop applications. Or, to a lesser extent, flash interfaces. This would be a good example. Can you imagine doing this in HTML ? http://demo.northkingdom.com/gettheglass/
And he does have a point. Recreating the starcraft interface in HTML5+CSS+Javascript is possible of course. In the same sense that you can write windows 95 in pure lambda calculus (frankly, I think the lambda calculus rewrite would be easier since there's translation tools).
I'm with the rest of the people here. Those fancy interfaces have little function, don't interact well with the rest of the world (e.g. search engines, content aggregators, ...), they're accessibility nightmares, ... But they're cool. But my opinion on them has exceptions : for some things, like games, that's more important than all those other things.
You are making the exact same mistake he is. You are picturing what you remember of YouTube and in your recollection, it is simple. This is because they have done a reasonable job of using a simple design, not because they have avoided "moving" things. Go look and you will find plenty of menus, tabs, comments, and other ui elements that are built of the exact stuff he says is worthless. Holding any of these sites up as an example of being essentially just text and a few images just indicates that you don't have much of an eye for detail.
But let's be honest : they're ugly. Youtube, for example looks like an ancient file manager, at best.
Let's compare, a native application with a -somewhat- similar purpose versus youtube.
XBMC: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=34h_sQ7-G1s
TiVo: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GNvgoLVzijE (I realize it's an irritating commercial. But look at the interface)
Netflix on ios: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F-4_ADXYT3E (sorry about the reviewer, and already much worse than XBMC or TiVo)
Youtube: http://www.youtube.com
This is a very nice animated interface (imho): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vCw0eWa-LkA (not related to videos though)
The sad part is, that you're right about Youtube as compared to some of it's online alternatives. Compared to those, it's not bad. But the whole point was to criticize online development tools like HTML and Javascript, as compared to offline ones. Flash versus HTML and the quality of interfaces they enable.
I would even go so far as saying that, when it comes to native apps XBMC and TiVo count as "good". They don't quite match my standards for "great" at all. Youtube ... euhm ... is at the level where I'd have trouble accepting it from a first-year programming student. Certainly wouldn't merit an A.
I'm not entirely sure what you're trying to say, but it seems fairly obvious you don't agree with the OP's crazy pronouncement that websites should just be text and a few images. We may be in one of those "violent agreement" situations, so I'm just going to call this argument done. :)
I agree with their philosophical principle though, a content site shouldn't be as complex as an application, but they often are.
"use that ancient technology called a bookmark."
Sure, I'll add yours to the 6000 other bookmarks I have, along with the 6 other sites that I try to check regularly because they have updates but don't use RSS.
This is so smug and arrogant and not nearly as justified as they seem to think it is. I guess I'm going to be that guy, but this goes in /r/cringe, not on Hacker News.
>I have decided after 20 years that I'm tired of trying to make the web site equivalent of DOOM. HTML is text and the occasional image. Text and the occasional image. That's it.
So he's just like the other ignorant masses that come on HN and act like HTML hasn't progressed since HTML4 because they can't be fucking bothered to understand that things like WebComponents are coming and are already usable and that it's just mind-numbingly stupid to the rest of us "in the known" when you make uninformed, dated arguments like this.
For a site were tons of people speak of the value of simplicity, and every other day they "Show HN" their own "static site generator", it's surprising how many people do NOT get his message.
First, he is not a web developer. He is a busines owner that also had to create a site for his business. He chose to follow the KISS principle, and that's what he advocates: catering to content first, fancy stuff second (or never at all).
The peripheral details to his post (if he personally uses Flash for some stuff but you don't like it, or if he has a line about coding important apps in C and you disagree) don't matter.
What matters is that for content websites --which makes most of them out there, including all blogs and brochure-ware sites --, his advice is spot on.
As for his website "looking like crap" (as 1-2 people comment below). That's the whole point. As long as it gets the job done he doesn't care. And it's not worse than Hacker News (no paragon of great web design) or Paul Graham's site.
Would you rather read PGs eassays in his website, or some moron's zero-content marketing fluff on a great looking, fancy-ass website, with CSS 3D transforms and the whole works?
I'd rather read PGs essays on a great looking, fancy-ass website. Why the false dichotomy?
Because real life is full of dichotomies, and they are not all false. They even exist in our profession -- we call them "engineering tradeoffs".
Have you seen many "fancy-ass websites" with great essay content?
Perhaps you can find 1 or 2. I doubt you can find 10. There's a reason for that too. Most of the good writers I've read value simplicity, both in their writing and in their presentation. And, as they believe in the value of their content, they see no need to dress it on a "fancy-ass website".
That's what the whole "content first" / "minimalism" etc movement has been all about, from the 37 Signals blog to the emergence in our community of stuff like Jekyll.
And I don't see what the fancy-assness of the website would add to PG's essays. Care to enlighten me?
That doesn't justify the specific dichotomy you presented. Nor does the general lack of (vaguely defined) "fancy-ass" websites with good content.
In my opinion 37signals has a "fancy-ass" blog with solid content. It has a clean, pleasing look, displays well on mobile and browsers, and even provides a search interface. PG's essays could be better presented in all of these respects.
Maybe we should get your definition of "fancy-ass" so we can decide what we're even talking about.
Well, I'm a pragmatist. If I observe a "general lack" of a certain combination of things ("fancy ass websites" with "good content") I assume there's a reason for that.
It doesn't even matter if the connection is casual. It's enough that it exists, because that means that the presense of one ("fancy-assenss") is enough to predict with good success the lack of the other ("good content").
>In my opinion 37signals has a "fancy-ass" blog with solid content.
I see nothing fancy ass about 37signal's block. It's "clean, pleasing and displays well on mobile and broswers" not by some fancy-assness, but because it's minimal and bare-bones -- the very opposite of fancy-assents.
Essentially it's merely styled text.
>Maybe we should get your definition of "fancy-ass" so we can decide what we're even talking about.
Well, if we go by TFA's description, that would be anything that couldn't be achieved with HTML 4 and no JS.
"Here's a pro tip from a seasoned veteran of web development: if you want to do something really remarkable on a computer, you don't write it in HTML. You write it in C."
I've have finished high school since a long time. I don't write stuff to get "upvotes".
>"Here's a pro tip from a seasoned veteran of web development: if you want to do something really remarkable on a computer, you don't write it in HTML. You write it in C."
Gee, perhaps I've adreesed that, maybe in the part were I write specifically: "The peripheral details to his post [like] if he has a line about coding important apps in C and you disagree, don't matter".
Not only it doesn't matter (in the context of his actual message, with is about another thing altogether), but I agree with him.
95% of the important stuff we use to get amazing stuff done is written in C/C++. From our OSs and Word Processors, to Photoshop and our Browser. Heck, even Google Search is done in C++, and even Facebook had to create a C++ PHP VM to handle the amazing volume of data they do.
Seen any web stuff that's much more than "let's recreate stuff we had on desktop (See: Atwood's Law) with easier deployment but crappier performance and usability"?
And, more importantly, that doesn't depend of a huge stack of C/C++ code underneath? (From the JS JIT to the browser, to WebGL, to the OS down to the TCP/IP Stack).
Also, sites like Facebook, Google, etc. have done some pretty amazing stuff with this web platform, going well beyond what it was originally intended and "text and images." Has he ever looked at Google Docs?
I did, and still prefer to use a Desktop Office Suite. For the far better responsiveness, tons more features (I do use), and lack of dependence of Google.
Yes, let's applaud ignorance. Blissful.
It's ironic because all the websites he listed (with the exception of Craigslist) have incredibly complex front-ends.
Sometimes that takes the form of a fancy JS single-page scroll (http://www.apple.com/iphone-5s/) to give a more natural flow to a traditional sales funnel. Sometimes that means robust streaming video (https://developers.google.com/youtube/), so people can watch live music or election coverage from home. Sometimes, it's adding a Leaflet map widget to one of the most design-conservative sites on the web (https://twitter.com/LeafletJS/status/240820008605851648) to help people find new apartments. All of these sites are elegant and work as expected, and they rely on far more than HTML4 and inline style tags to do so.
I can appreciate a well-designed and well-built site. One that pays attention to hierarchy and how the information is presented with an eye toward performance and scalability. I always find that my favorite sites are the ones that seem to take Edgar Allen Poe's advice for writing a short story. Every component has a reason for being there (i.e., it is functional). If the component or element's purpose is to be there for the sake of simply being there (it just looks cool!), then it shouldn't exist.
I suppose that's minimalism. But oftentimes, minimalism goes against what people think of in terms of "creating an experience." Most of the time when I visit a website that creates an experience, I am left with a sour taste in my mouth.
I can't even figure out the point of it all, between the tangential boasting of being one of the first sites on the web (is this even true?), saying to write in C instead of HTML (is he programming-illiterate?), rants about how bad "background music, gimmicks" are and then boasts that their site will use Flash because it will "make our graphics, music, voices and games look and sound good".
This doesn't even look like satire, it's complete nonsense as far as I can tell.
https://www.gandi.net/whois/details?search=hikousenenterpris... and the parent company were both created in 2008 https://www.gandi.net/whois/details?search=palaceinthesky.co..., so either the author has a time machine or is lying?