6 ms·

This is sickening-grade bikeshedding. Next time, spare us, and say it to your rubber duck instead.

by itsunbelievable 11y ago

shrugger 11y ago
deleted b/c brigading
- ZenoArrow 11y ago
  Having an insight into one area of computing doesn't make you an expert in all areas of computing.
  - shrugger 11y ago
    deleted b/c brigading
    - ZenoArrow 11y ago
      Consider if I was an expert in databases. Why would the appearance of a site dedicated to databases matter? It'd be completely unrelated to the topic I'd be sharing information on, and time I could spend improving the site could be time I spend improving my knowledge even further. As for this Lisp scripting site, for all I care the author could've shared the information via a Pastebin site and I would've got the same value out of it.
      - yoklov 11y ago
        And this happens regularly! I know of experts in programming languages[0], compression[1], graphics[2, 3], and computational geometry[3] who all have sites that both have excellent content, and look fairly awful. [0]: http://piumarta.com/index.html http://piumarta.com/index.html [1]: http://cbloom.com/ http://cbloom.com/ [2]: http://iquilezles.org/ http://iquilezles.org/ (okay, this one doesn't look that bad in retrospect) [3]: http://paulbourke.net/ http://paulbourke.net/
        ktRolster 11y ago
        [0] and [3] look great, unless you are opposed to simplicity. They kind of follow "brutalism" in a web architecture.
      - plugnburn 11y ago
        Except that most pastebins would at least make the text more readable than it is there. Especially on mobiles. Markdown with Strapdown inclusion, a pastebin, a CMS, bare Bootstrap... anything would be more readable than this.
  - noir_lord 11y ago
    It certainly makes some people think they do though. They can't separate the content from the medium.
- trajing 11y ago
  I feel as though this is at least somewhat relevant: http://motherfuckingwebsite.com http://motherfuckingwebsite.com
  - cisstrd 11y ago
    Then surely, so is this http://bettermotherfuckingwebsite.com/ http://bettermotherfuckingwebsite.com/
    - deleted 11y ago
      [deleted]
    - JetSetWilly 11y ago
      They made it washed out with poor contrast and made the lines annoyingly short. Seems like the first site is more readable to me.
      - coldtea 11y ago
        Everything we know from centuries of design experience and all science knows about the eyes and how we read, tells us they made it better than the first site. There's not even a parallel universe where the first one is better -- and it's not a subjective issue either.
        JetSetWilly 11y ago
        What papers say that low contrast is better than high contrast black on white? There is research to show that black on white is better than white on black, but I doubt there's any to show that poor contrast dark grey on light grey is better than black on white. It is just a fashion, there's no science to say that low contrast is better. http://contrastrebellion.com/ http://contrastrebellion.com/ Shorter lines I might grant you, though.
        coldtea 11y ago
        >What papers say that low contrast is better than high contrast black on white? Not about low contrast being better -- only about (slightly) reduced contrast than full on white on black blaze. Black on white is better for readability, but the brightness can induce fatigue for longer term use (and people use computers all day long) and also hurt knowledge retention (according to educational related research). A slightly off-white is better there than shining a white backlight on your eyes for hours on end (and adjusting monitor brightness achieves the same effect, color-wise as having a "less white" background in the first place, and is recommended by doctors).
agumonkey 11y ago
I hope he doesn't look at HN HTML code.
- plugnburn 11y ago
  Looked. So what? There's a difference between "ugly" and "invalid". Both cases are bad but the first one has much more impact on end users. Edit to answer "how is it invalid": is this not enough? http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=http%3A%2F%2Fnews.ycombinator.com&charset=%28detect+automatically%29&doctype=Inline&group=0 http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=http%3A%2F%2Fnews.ycombina...
  - agumonkey 11y ago
    How is it invalid ?
  - agumonkey 11y ago
    This is HN webpage, I meant the article page doctype. taken from w3c: <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/loose.dtd"> article doctype: <!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/loose.dtd">
    - plugnburn 11y ago
      I meant that website is probably valid but ugly, and HN page is vice versa.
plugnburn 11y ago
Did you just register to say that? Hilarious. I'd always laughed at "developers" that can't even arrange their own websites properly and still try to educate us about what's acceptable and what is not. Don't know a thing about web design? Use a ready-made blogging platform then, not a school-grade HTML4 style-less nonsense. No one forces you to roll your own solution every single time. But heck, even a simple Bootstrap-based page would be much more readable. Seriously, it reminded me of my very first HTML page made in school in 2004 when I knew nothing of it. The only difference is that I omitted the doctype altogether back then. P.S. HN thinks that I'm "submitting too fast", so it took me about an hour to wait for an ability to reply.
- LukeB_UK 11y ago
  This is the website of John Walker, cofounder of Autodesk: https://www.fourmilab.ch/ https://www.fourmilab.ch/ There are lots of good articles on there, but the site uses frames. Does that detract from the quality of the content? No. Paul Graham's site: http://www.paulgraham.com/ http://www.paulgraham.com/ Has a HTML 4.01 Transitional doctype and uses tables for layouts. Does that detract from the content? No. Hell, you're on hacker news. It doesn't even define a doctype and also uses tables for layouts.
  - plugnburn 11y ago
    You are obviously trying to do some appeal to authority, which doesn't work on me. No one is an authority for me. > This is the website of John Walker, cofounder of Autodesk If he's a cofounder of Autodesk and can't make a decent website himself, how hard would it be to pay someone who can? > Paul Graham's site Even worse than the former. Someone, stop that pain, tell him finally how to adjust screen resolution over 640x480! > Does that detract from the quality of the content? Yes. It shows the real attitude to the target audience. > Hell, you're on hacker news. It doesn't even define a doctype and also uses tables for layouts. Correct, but at least it has some CSS and doesn't look like a hello-from-nineties.
    - LukeB_UK 11y ago

This is sickening-grade bikeshedding. Next time, spare us, and say it to your rubber duck instead.

shrugger 11y ago

deleted b/c brigading

ZenoArrow 11y ago
Having an insight into one area of computing doesn't make you an expert in all areas of computing.
- shrugger 11y ago
  deleted b/c brigading
  - ZenoArrow 11y ago
    Consider if I was an expert in databases. Why would the appearance of a site dedicated to databases matter? It'd be completely unrelated to the topic I'd be sharing information on, and time I could spend improving the site could be time I spend improving my knowledge even further. As for this Lisp scripting site, for all I care the author could've shared the information via a Pastebin site and I would've got the same value out of it.
    - yoklov 11y ago
      And this happens regularly! I know of experts in programming languages[0], compression[1], graphics[2, 3], and computational geometry[3] who all have sites that both have excellent content, and look fairly awful. [0]: http://piumarta.com/index.html http://piumarta.com/index.html [1]: http://cbloom.com/ http://cbloom.com/ [2]: http://iquilezles.org/ http://iquilezles.org/ (okay, this one doesn't look that bad in retrospect) [3]: http://paulbourke.net/ http://paulbourke.net/
      - ktRolster 11y ago
        [0] and [3] look great, unless you are opposed to simplicity. They kind of follow "brutalism" in a web architecture.
    - plugnburn 11y ago
      Except that most pastebins would at least make the text more readable than it is there. Especially on mobiles. Markdown with Strapdown inclusion, a pastebin, a CMS, bare Bootstrap... anything would be more readable than this.
- noir_lord 11y ago
  It certainly makes some people think they do though. They can't separate the content from the medium.
trajing 11y ago
I feel as though this is at least somewhat relevant: http://motherfuckingwebsite.com http://motherfuckingwebsite.com
- cisstrd 11y ago
  Then surely, so is this http://bettermotherfuckingwebsite.com/ http://bettermotherfuckingwebsite.com/
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
  - JetSetWilly 11y ago
    They made it washed out with poor contrast and made the lines annoyingly short. Seems like the first site is more readable to me.
    - coldtea 11y ago
      Everything we know from centuries of design experience and all science knows about the eyes and how we read, tells us they made it better than the first site. There's not even a parallel universe where the first one is better -- and it's not a subjective issue either.
      - JetSetWilly 11y ago
        What papers say that low contrast is better than high contrast black on white? There is research to show that black on white is better than white on black, but I doubt there's any to show that poor contrast dark grey on light grey is better than black on white. It is just a fashion, there's no science to say that low contrast is better. http://contrastrebellion.com/ http://contrastrebellion.com/ Shorter lines I might grant you, though.
        coldtea 11y ago
        >What papers say that low contrast is better than high contrast black on white? Not about low contrast being better -- only about (slightly) reduced contrast than full on white on black blaze. Black on white is better for readability, but the brightness can induce fatigue for longer term use (and people use computers all day long) and also hurt knowledge retention (according to educational related research). A slightly off-white is better there than shining a white backlight on your eyes for hours on end (and adjusting monitor brightness achieves the same effect, color-wise as having a "less white" background in the first place, and is recommended by doctors).

agumonkey 11y ago

I hope he doesn't look at HN HTML code.

plugnburn 11y ago
Looked. So what? There's a difference between "ugly" and "invalid". Both cases are bad but the first one has much more impact on end users. Edit to answer "how is it invalid": is this not enough? http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=http%3A%2F%2Fnews.ycombinator.com&charset=%28detect+automatically%29&doctype=Inline&group=0 http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=http%3A%2F%2Fnews.ycombina...
- agumonkey 11y ago
  How is it invalid ?
- agumonkey 11y ago
  This is HN webpage, I meant the article page doctype. taken from w3c: <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/loose.dtd"> article doctype: <!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/loose.dtd">
  - plugnburn 11y ago
    I meant that website is probably valid but ugly, and HN page is vice versa.

plugnburn 11y ago

Did you just register to say that? Hilarious. I'd always laughed at "developers" that can't even arrange their own websites properly and still try to educate us about what's acceptable and what is not. Don't know a thing about web design? Use a ready-made blogging platform then, not a school-grade HTML4 style-less nonsense. No one forces you to roll your own solution every single time. But heck, even a simple Bootstrap-based page would be much more readable. Seriously, it reminded me of my very first HTML page made in school in 2004 when I knew nothing of it. The only difference is that I omitted the doctype altogether back then. P.S. HN thinks that I'm "submitting too fast", so it took me about an hour to wait for an ability to reply.

LukeB_UK 11y ago
This is the website of John Walker, cofounder of Autodesk: https://www.fourmilab.ch/ https://www.fourmilab.ch/ There are lots of good articles on there, but the site uses frames. Does that detract from the quality of the content? No. Paul Graham's site: http://www.paulgraham.com/ http://www.paulgraham.com/ Has a HTML 4.01 Transitional doctype and uses tables for layouts. Does that detract from the content? No. Hell, you're on hacker news. It doesn't even define a doctype and also uses tables for layouts.
- plugnburn 11y ago
  You are obviously trying to do some appeal to authority, which doesn't work on me. No one is an authority for me. > This is the website of John Walker, cofounder of Autodesk If he's a cofounder of Autodesk and can't make a decent website himself, how hard would it be to pay someone who can? > Paul Graham's site Even worse than the former. Someone, stop that pain, tell him finally how to adjust screen resolution over 640x480! > Does that detract from the quality of the content? Yes. It shows the real attitude to the target audience. > Hell, you're on hacker news. It doesn't even define a doctype and also uses tables for layouts. Correct, but at least it has some CSS and doesn't look like a hello-from-nineties.
  - LukeB_UK 11y ago