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Has anyone tried to create something other than a simple blog, like an actual web product with with users, using only the HTML+CSS stack?

stimpson_j_cat 6y ago
Yes. In the nineties.
ratww 6y ago
I worked in a project from 2010 to 2014 which was just HTML and CSS. It was a University portal for teachers, students and admin staff that handled almost everything in the campus: grades, attendance, class schedule, downloads, renting books in the library, making room reservations, lunch vouchers for staff, a helpdesk system for students and staff, getting a free email account, etc. The goal was to be simple enough for non-technical students and older teachers. Most things were one click away from the home page, which was just a bunch of colorful icons. You clicked one icon and could see schedule, grades and attendance. The teacher could edit grades and attendance of the whole class in a single screen. There were no special requirements to drop JS. We just removed JS at some point and never added anything again. Frankly it worked pretty well. The design was made by a professional rather than using off-the-shelf stuff. What killed it was a migration to Bootstrap around 2015 after I left. For no reason. The layout ended up looking outdated compared to what we had, and the animations and javascript dropdowns were too heavy for the University's ageing computer fleet. The extra whitespace from default tables made everything too big to fit in a screen. Kind of a pity. But by this point everyone was moving to phones anyway, so the university spent a couple million in an iOS/Android app.
deckard1 6y ago
That's impossible. You're going to need a backend, which at that point it stops being HTML+CSS and becomes LAMP or something. The only thing I can think of that can be done in pure HTML+CSS that would drive any sort of revenue and could be considered a business is an affiliate marketing site. I suppose you could also run a survey site and collect feedback via mailto link, but that's really old school.

stimpson_j_cat 6y ago

Yes. In the nineties.

ratww 6y ago

I worked in a project from 2010 to 2014 which was just HTML and CSS. It was a University portal for teachers, students and admin staff that handled almost everything in the campus: grades, attendance, class schedule, downloads, renting books in the library, making room reservations, lunch vouchers for staff, a helpdesk system for students and staff, getting a free email account, etc. The goal was to be simple enough for non-technical students and older teachers. Most things were one click away from the home page, which was just a bunch of colorful icons. You clicked one icon and could see schedule, grades and attendance. The teacher could edit grades and attendance of the whole class in a single screen. There were no special requirements to drop JS. We just removed JS at some point and never added anything again. Frankly it worked pretty well. The design was made by a professional rather than using off-the-shelf stuff. What killed it was a migration to Bootstrap around 2015 after I left. For no reason. The layout ended up looking outdated compared to what we had, and the animations and javascript dropdowns were too heavy for the University's ageing computer fleet. The extra whitespace from default tables made everything too big to fit in a screen. Kind of a pity. But by this point everyone was moving to phones anyway, so the university spent a couple million in an iOS/Android app.

deckard1 6y ago

That's impossible. You're going to need a backend, which at that point it stops being HTML+CSS and becomes LAMP or something. The only thing I can think of that can be done in pure HTML+CSS that would drive any sort of revenue and could be considered a business is an affiliate marketing site. I suppose you could also run a survey site and collect feedback via mailto link, but that's really old school.