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I like the sentiment of this, I feel it very strongly. But I also think this is just another expression of personal website anxiety. This is the same sentiment

by 1dom 2y ago

I like the sentiment of this, I feel it very strongly. But I also think this is just another expression of personal website anxiety. This is the same sentiment that lead to the boom in digital gardens, notion, PKM etc. I haven't accepted it yet, but I think people who host their own personal websites need to accept that they're hosting a personal website, and it's going to change over time as they change. People already know and accept and see that as a feature of a personal website. It's necessary as the tech changes too, a personal website with the latest and greatest tech from 20 years ago renders like garbage in a modern browser. I really don't mean to sound mean, and I do sincerely empathise and sympathise with the author, because every year or 2, I have the same revelation that my website hasn't been updated in a while, and it's not my fault, it my platform just isn't technically correct and it's too restrictive and _that's_ what's stopping me being consistent on my personal website. But let's be honest, that's a me problem for not updating it or adding to it. Every year or 2 for the past 20 years, I'm sure many of us could write the same "<my current website structure> rots. <The one I had an epiphany about a few days ago> wait".

oneeyedpigeon 2y ago
> a personal website with the latest and greatest tech from 20 years ago renders like garbage in a modern browser The irony being that one without the "latest and greatest" tech would still render fine - tbh, even in 2005, some of this "latest" tech was recognised as not the "greatest". Examples? I don't think daringfireball.net has changed that much since 2002, neither blog.codinghorror.com since 2004.
- Macha 2y ago
  Coding Horror has moved from self hosted movable type to hosted movable type to Ghost. The theme has been deliberately kept relatively consistent, but the tech has had significant changes.
  - Macha 2y ago
    That didn't last long. The timing is incredibly funny as just 4 days after making this post, Coding Horror _did_ redesign, more significantly different this time.
- 1dom 2y ago
  12 year old me's website from 2002 on webarchive looks like trash compared to when I made it because framesets and css has evolved since then. Many of my nerdy friends at the time also had fully flash based, or just a flash animation on the front of their websites. We also all made liberal use of blink and marquee tags which might still work in some places, but are officially deprecated and unsupported in others. At the time, these sorts of things were considered the latest and greatest. Hell, I remember one maniac playing around with Microsoft Silverlight on their personal site as we were in college. We knew some was good, some was bad etc. None of it survives as intended now though, unless it was updated. There aren't many personal like websites I remember that have stayed personal sites for over 10 years. But some have, kind of. Take gwern.net or stevepavlina (not a regular reader anymore): both of them - if you squint - look pretty similar minimal 2000 - 2010 style as when they first started, but the implementation has had to evolve as even things like CSS have had a bunch of breaking changes over the major versions. codinghorror uses Discourse for comments, and that didn't come around until 2014, and the only thing that looks like it might be from 10+ years ago on daringfireball is the content: the tech that renders it and the design all hinges on 2010+ technologies and companies. I love minimal styles and ideals. But if you want to create a personal website that survives time and looks how you expect in a modern browser, even a minimal one, you have 2 options: 1. it has to either look exactly like some variation of motherfuckingwebsite.com, and that will eventually vary between browsers 2. it takes some effort to maintain over a period of years Sorry, I wrote the lengthy response above and I think just realised me and the other person who responded to you have misunderstood your comment: I think me and the other person initially assumed you're making only 1 point, that latest and greatest tech wouldn't render, but your examples clearly use modern tech from well after 2004, which makes no sense. On rereading, you're making 2 points, right? 1 point is that tech from 2004 can still work (but you didn't provide example) and other point is that those 2 sites you did provide are example that "website structures" (e.g. linear blog) can survive time but didn't actually state that point. Is that right? Assuming so, you're completely right on your second point, and people who've done that (maintained a blog for years) are the real legends who've conquered person website anxiety. They're better than many, including me and OP, who have the issue of feeling like they need to completely rearchitect their website every 2 years to a wiki, or digital garden, or knowledge base, or whatever the latest PKM tech buzzword is. This is why I was saying that there's no need to crap all over e.g. blogs for rotting, as your examples prove blogs can survives decades. OP is just another response to that feeling of "uuurgggh I can't quite wrangle my thoughts into a neat, atomic, chronological list of blog posts and people who read blogs will judge my personal website, so I'll tell them it's not a blog".

by 1dom 2y ago

oneeyedpigeon 2y ago

> a personal website with the latest and greatest tech from 20 years ago renders like garbage in a modern browser The irony being that one without the "latest and greatest" tech would still render fine - tbh, even in 2005, some of this "latest" tech was recognised as not the "greatest". Examples? I don't think daringfireball.net has changed that much since 2002, neither blog.codinghorror.com since 2004.

Macha 2y ago
Coding Horror has moved from self hosted movable type to hosted movable type to Ghost. The theme has been deliberately kept relatively consistent, but the tech has had significant changes.
- Macha 2y ago
  That didn't last long. The timing is incredibly funny as just 4 days after making this post, Coding Horror _did_ redesign, more significantly different this time.
1dom 2y ago
12 year old me's website from 2002 on webarchive looks like trash compared to when I made it because framesets and css has evolved since then. Many of my nerdy friends at the time also had fully flash based, or just a flash animation on the front of their websites. We also all made liberal use of blink and marquee tags which might still work in some places, but are officially deprecated and unsupported in others. At the time, these sorts of things were considered the latest and greatest. Hell, I remember one maniac playing around with Microsoft Silverlight on their personal site as we were in college. We knew some was good, some was bad etc. None of it survives as intended now though, unless it was updated. There aren't many personal like websites I remember that have stayed personal sites for over 10 years. But some have, kind of. Take gwern.net or stevepavlina (not a regular reader anymore): both of them - if you squint - look pretty similar minimal 2000 - 2010 style as when they first started, but the implementation has had to evolve as even things like CSS have had a bunch of breaking changes over the major versions. codinghorror uses Discourse for comments, and that didn't come around until 2014, and the only thing that looks like it might be from 10+ years ago on daringfireball is the content: the tech that renders it and the design all hinges on 2010+ technologies and companies. I love minimal styles and ideals. But if you want to create a personal website that survives time and looks how you expect in a modern browser, even a minimal one, you have 2 options: 1. it has to either look exactly like some variation of motherfuckingwebsite.com, and that will eventually vary between browsers 2. it takes some effort to maintain over a period of years Sorry, I wrote the lengthy response above and I think just realised me and the other person who responded to you have misunderstood your comment: I think me and the other person initially assumed you're making only 1 point, that latest and greatest tech wouldn't render, but your examples clearly use modern tech from well after 2004, which makes no sense. On rereading, you're making 2 points, right? 1 point is that tech from 2004 can still work (but you didn't provide example) and other point is that those 2 sites you did provide are example that "website structures" (e.g. linear blog) can survive time but didn't actually state that point. Is that right? Assuming so, you're completely right on your second point, and people who've done that (maintained a blog for years) are the real legends who've conquered person website anxiety. They're better than many, including me and OP, who have the issue of feeling like they need to completely rearchitect their website every 2 years to a wiki, or digital garden, or knowledge base, or whatever the latest PKM tech buzzword is. This is why I was saying that there's no need to crap all over e.g. blogs for rotting, as your examples prove blogs can survives decades. OP is just another response to that feeling of "uuurgggh I can't quite wrangle my thoughts into a neat, atomic, chronological list of blog posts and people who read blogs will judge my personal website, so I'll tell them it's not a blog".