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I think if one designed a “crisis-proof” version of the web, it might end up being a network of PDFs. My reasoning being: - PDFs are universally understood by

I think if one designed a “crisis-proof” version of the web, it might end up being a network of PDFs. My reasoning being: - PDFs are universally understood by most people and can be read on phones, desktops, laptops, and eBook readers. - Once you’ve downloaded a local PDF version of the site, there is no risk that it can be changed or removed by the host. - File size is predictable ahead of time, which is useful if your connection is limited or slow. - PDFs are designed for printing (moreso than most sites) which may be useful in situations where electricity is in low supply.

Tajnymag 5y ago
Except the printing part, all can be said about a standalone html file. External content, like images, can be inlined, thus you would only have to distribute one single .html file. I'm not sure how would file2file linking work in the realm of pdf files. With html files, it's easy even without any web server. Plus, html can be even digested through a terminal interface. That cannot be said about the binary nature of pdf documents.
- nulbyte 5y ago
  I use a terminal pager with PDFs quite frequently. It works surprisingly well. Even something you wouldn't expect, like a pay stub, renders fine in the terminal.
  - bashinator 5y ago
    What do you use to display the pdf? Pandoc?
    - dredmorbius 5y ago
      Pandoc is a converter, not a viewer. Typically one would view a PDF with a dedicated viewer (xpdf, zathura, kpdf, Okular, Evince, ...), or by converting to text (pdftotext). less can be extended with hooks (lesspipe) to read a wide range of file types on the console. Some console file managers can also translate PDFs to text (mc, ranger).
- keiferski 5y ago
  This is true, but I do think a PDF is just conceptually simpler and requires less technical knowledge. Especially in a situation where technical users are scarce. IMO most people have a mental model of a PDF as being a digital document, whereas a HTML file is somewhat more amorphous.
ChrisMarshallNY 5y ago
PDFs are...not so easy to generate dynamically. I have done it with a couple of PHP libraries (fpdf and mpdf), but they are primitive, compared to desktop PDF generators. I know that you can use Java (never done that), or even...ugh...XSL (also never done that).
- dredmorbius 5y ago
  Most desktop operating systems offer a print-to-PDF functionality. It's long been an add-on for Microsoft, but that's really a historical accident / deliberate choice of that platform. PDFs can be trivially created from Markdown or using LaTeX templates if you're looking for a programmatic solution. Pandox and XeLaTex are helpful, the poppler libraries as well. Again, these are generally and widely available at no charge.
foxes 5y ago
How is a complicated binary better than a literal text file? Truly absurd, this whole thread is churn.
lucideer 5y ago
> PDFs are universally understood by most people and can be read on phones, desktops, laptops, and eBook readers. PDFs need a proprietary app to use, most of which are loaded with spyware & trackers. I may be mistaken in this but MacOS/iOS are the only OSes I know of that read them natively? There's absolutely nothing universal about the format. HTML is truly universal: not only does every OS come with a built in HTML viewer, but it's a plain text file. You can read the source using anything. > Once you’ve downloaded a local PDF version of the site, there is no risk that it can be changed or removed by the host. Once you've downloaded a local HTML version of the page there's no risk that it can be changed or removed by the host. Yes, there's caveats to both: people can create PDFs with remote embeds or HTML sites with ajax content but both of these are the fault/responsibility of the individual author. It's as easy to make good downloadable HTML as downloadable PDF. The so called "churn" is the responsibility of the individual HTML author. If you're making bad HTML, the fix is to start making good HTML. Not to switch to a closed inaccessible format.
- npteljes 5y ago
  PDF is an open format, with multiple FOSS reader implementations. You could argue that a subset of niche features can only be used in Acrobat Reader, but AR is far from the only PDF reader out there. And the churn is part of the zeitgeist, not really a responsibility of anyone in particular. Individuals are suckered into it, companies are supplying it, and governments are allowing it. We're all part of it. Not new either: I'm hearing it since the 90s how the modern life is rushed, and that's just my limited experience.
  - lucideer 5y ago
    I said it wasn't universal, which is somewhat different to the vague idea of being "open", and yes, PDF is technically an "open format" depending on how you define "open". The ISO 32000 spec. costs in the region of ~200 USD/EUR. What that "openness" translates into in the real world is that there are zero non-Adobe viewers that support all of PDF's features, and even less PDF editors. The standard PDF editor costs ~200 USD/EUR (annual subscription). This is before we even get into the nightmarish world of PDF parsing. Or PDF accessibility. PDF is a great format if you're sending a document to someone for them to print immediately. It has no other valid uses imo.
npteljes 5y ago
Not sure about your points. Contrast it with a static HTML+CSS website: - PDFs require a reader, HTML a browser. I wouldn't argue that there are more PDF readers installed than browsers. - Downloaded static HTML works the same - File size can be included in the HTTP response: in the Content-Length header - Printing is nice, but reflowable text is even nicer, since we target a multitude of rendering targets.
lmm 5y ago
I set up my blog so that the page source would consist of the original markdown and as little markup as possible to make that render. You can read it with telnet and the experience isn't so much worse than using a browser. (The actual part that makes this work is a pile of opaque javascript doing all sorts of nasty things at runtime, but such is the way of web pages in today's browsers, I don't worry too much about it).

Tajnymag 5y ago

Except the printing part, all can be said about a standalone html file. External content, like images, can be inlined, thus you would only have to distribute one single .html file. I'm not sure how would file2file linking work in the realm of pdf files. With html files, it's easy even without any web server. Plus, html can be even digested through a terminal interface. That cannot be said about the binary nature of pdf documents.

nulbyte 5y ago
I use a terminal pager with PDFs quite frequently. It works surprisingly well. Even something you wouldn't expect, like a pay stub, renders fine in the terminal.
- bashinator 5y ago
  What do you use to display the pdf? Pandoc?
  - dredmorbius 5y ago
    Pandoc is a converter, not a viewer. Typically one would view a PDF with a dedicated viewer (xpdf, zathura, kpdf, Okular, Evince, ...), or by converting to text (pdftotext). less can be extended with hooks (lesspipe) to read a wide range of file types on the console. Some console file managers can also translate PDFs to text (mc, ranger).
keiferski 5y ago
This is true, but I do think a PDF is just conceptually simpler and requires less technical knowledge. Especially in a situation where technical users are scarce. IMO most people have a mental model of a PDF as being a digital document, whereas a HTML file is somewhat more amorphous.

ChrisMarshallNY 5y ago

PDFs are...not so easy to generate dynamically. I have done it with a couple of PHP libraries (fpdf and mpdf), but they are primitive, compared to desktop PDF generators. I know that you can use Java (never done that), or even...ugh...XSL (also never done that).

dredmorbius 5y ago
Most desktop operating systems offer a print-to-PDF functionality. It's long been an add-on for Microsoft, but that's really a historical accident / deliberate choice of that platform. PDFs can be trivially created from Markdown or using LaTeX templates if you're looking for a programmatic solution. Pandox and XeLaTex are helpful, the poppler libraries as well. Again, these are generally and widely available at no charge.

foxes 5y ago

How is a complicated binary better than a literal text file? Truly absurd, this whole thread is churn.

lucideer 5y ago

> PDFs are universally understood by most people and can be read on phones, desktops, laptops, and eBook readers. PDFs need a proprietary app to use, most of which are loaded with spyware & trackers. I may be mistaken in this but MacOS/iOS are the only OSes I know of that read them natively? There's absolutely nothing universal about the format. HTML is truly universal: not only does every OS come with a built in HTML viewer, but it's a plain text file. You can read the source using anything. > Once you’ve downloaded a local PDF version of the site, there is no risk that it can be changed or removed by the host. Once you've downloaded a local HTML version of the page there's no risk that it can be changed or removed by the host. Yes, there's caveats to both: people can create PDFs with remote embeds or HTML sites with ajax content but both of these are the fault/responsibility of the individual author. It's as easy to make good downloadable HTML as downloadable PDF. The so called "churn" is the responsibility of the individual HTML author. If you're making bad HTML, the fix is to start making good HTML. Not to switch to a closed inaccessible format.

npteljes 5y ago
PDF is an open format, with multiple FOSS reader implementations. You could argue that a subset of niche features can only be used in Acrobat Reader, but AR is far from the only PDF reader out there. And the churn is part of the zeitgeist, not really a responsibility of anyone in particular. Individuals are suckered into it, companies are supplying it, and governments are allowing it. We're all part of it. Not new either: I'm hearing it since the 90s how the modern life is rushed, and that's just my limited experience.
- lucideer 5y ago
  I said it wasn't universal, which is somewhat different to the vague idea of being "open", and yes, PDF is technically an "open format" depending on how you define "open". The ISO 32000 spec. costs in the region of ~200 USD/EUR. What that "openness" translates into in the real world is that there are zero non-Adobe viewers that support all of PDF's features, and even less PDF editors. The standard PDF editor costs ~200 USD/EUR (annual subscription). This is before we even get into the nightmarish world of PDF parsing. Or PDF accessibility. PDF is a great format if you're sending a document to someone for them to print immediately. It has no other valid uses imo.

npteljes 5y ago

Not sure about your points. Contrast it with a static HTML+CSS website: - PDFs require a reader, HTML a browser. I wouldn't argue that there are more PDF readers installed than browsers. - Downloaded static HTML works the same - File size can be included in the HTTP response: in the Content-Length header - Printing is nice, but reflowable text is even nicer, since we target a multitude of rendering targets.

lmm 5y ago

I set up my blog so that the page source would consist of the original markdown and as little markup as possible to make that render. You can read it with telnet and the experience isn't so much worse than using a browser. (The actual part that makes this work is a pile of opaque javascript doing all sorts of nasty things at runtime, but such is the way of web pages in today's browsers, I don't worry too much about it).