4 ms·

> the little-known meta http-equiv="Refresh" HTML tag Oh, don't mind me, I'll just be over here in the corner laughing ruefully as my bones crumble to dust: ba

> the little-known meta http-equiv="Refresh" HTML tag Oh, don't mind me, I'll just be over here in the corner laughing ruefully as my bones crumble to dust: back when I started, if you wanted a page to refresh on its own, this was the only way. Beautiful work! A splendid example of formal minimalism at its best.

dnlzro 1y ago
Thank you! And umm, not to make you feel ancient, but I think I wasn't even alive yet when `setTimeout(() => location.reload(), ...)` first became widely available.
- throwanem 1y ago
  Oh, don't worry about it at all, and I don't just mean in my own case. Every generation learns to age graciously or otherwise, partly through experience, and for me it's a regular source of joy to see you young 'uns independently rediscover things I long since quit bothering to remember.
  - phatskat 1y ago
    Honestly it’s kind of cute, I had all but forgotten about http-equiv
skrebbel 1y ago
I can’t wait till they hear about framesets
mintplant 1y ago
Of course, the "http-equiv" means that this tag is supposed to stand in for an equivalent HTTP header, so you could accomplish the same by sending a "Refresh: 60" header :)
- throwanem 1y ago
  Sure, if you wanted to deal with configuring Apache. Or getting your hosting provider to do that. If you knew to ask, and didn't mind waiting, and your hosting provider knew how...
  - dudus 1y ago
    Not sure what you are on about. Adding an HTTP header to a request is one of the easiest things to do.
    - urquhartfe 1y ago
      I think you are the one who doesn't know what they are on about. First, the header must be added to the response, not the request. Second, in many environments (managed hosting etc.) there is not an easy way (or indeed a way at all) of adding headers to responses.
      - dylan604 1y ago
        is that something that could have be done in the dot file for server override? what was it, .htaccess or something?
        throwanem 1y ago
        Sure, if you wanted to deal with configuring Apache. Or getting your hosting provider to do that. If you knew to ask, and didn't mind waiting, and your hosting provider knew how...and was willing to do it, a condition I forgot to add in my last comment here, but which applies equally there. (User-provided .htaccess files were the source of a number of relatively high-profile early CVEs, as I recall. Apache grew a number of options for trusting their content, and I want to say before very long you could not rely on anything working past simple HTTP-Basic credential management.) Oldschool shared web hosting was a shockingly deprived environment by modern standards, which is why my Linode account turned old enough a few months ago to buy a drink in a bar: $20 a month in 2004 was amply worth gaining a degree of control over web server configuration which is broadly the default assumption now. Since I was also administering some shared web hosting in my own right at the time - partially overlapping with my web design work targeting shared hosting, since some customers preferred to BYO - I don't blame admins for being difficult to work with; we all had good reason to be, with the afterthought security typically was everywhere in those days. But you begin perhaps to see why bypassing the whole rigamarole with a hint to the client was attractive.

dnlzro 1y ago

Thank you! And umm, not to make you feel ancient, but I think I wasn't even alive yet when `setTimeout(() => location.reload(), ...)` first became widely available.

throwanem 1y ago
Oh, don't worry about it at all, and I don't just mean in my own case. Every generation learns to age graciously or otherwise, partly through experience, and for me it's a regular source of joy to see you young 'uns independently rediscover things I long since quit bothering to remember.
- phatskat 1y ago
  Honestly it’s kind of cute, I had all but forgotten about http-equiv

skrebbel 1y ago

I can’t wait till they hear about framesets

mintplant 1y ago

Of course, the "http-equiv" means that this tag is supposed to stand in for an equivalent HTTP header, so you could accomplish the same by sending a "Refresh: 60" header :)

throwanem 1y ago
Sure, if you wanted to deal with configuring Apache. Or getting your hosting provider to do that. If you knew to ask, and didn't mind waiting, and your hosting provider knew how...
- dudus 1y ago
  Not sure what you are on about. Adding an HTTP header to a request is one of the easiest things to do.
  - urquhartfe 1y ago
    I think you are the one who doesn't know what they are on about. First, the header must be added to the response, not the request. Second, in many environments (managed hosting etc.) there is not an easy way (or indeed a way at all) of adding headers to responses.
    - dylan604 1y ago
      is that something that could have be done in the dot file for server override? what was it, .htaccess or something?
      - throwanem 1y ago
        Sure, if you wanted to deal with configuring Apache. Or getting your hosting provider to do that. If you knew to ask, and didn't mind waiting, and your hosting provider knew how...and was willing to do it, a condition I forgot to add in my last comment here, but which applies equally there. (User-provided .htaccess files were the source of a number of relatively high-profile early CVEs, as I recall. Apache grew a number of options for trusting their content, and I want to say before very long you could not rely on anything working past simple HTTP-Basic credential management.) Oldschool shared web hosting was a shockingly deprived environment by modern standards, which is why my Linode account turned old enough a few months ago to buy a drink in a bar: $20 a month in 2004 was amply worth gaining a degree of control over web server configuration which is broadly the default assumption now. Since I was also administering some shared web hosting in my own right at the time - partially overlapping with my web design work targeting shared hosting, since some customers preferred to BYO - I don't blame admins for being difficult to work with; we all had good reason to be, with the afterthought security typically was everywhere in those days. But you begin perhaps to see why bypassing the whole rigamarole with a hint to the client was attractive.