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I don't know if you're a Common Lisp guy, but comments like "99% of all web developers are not worth their salt" aren't really going to help your cause. If you

I don't know if you're a Common Lisp guy, but comments like "99% of all web developers are not worth their salt" aren't really going to help your cause. If you personally dislike "the typical Node.js or Ruby" web sites, that's fine, but a lot of people who write software for the web these days clearly do like those sort of web sites and don't like an unformatted wall of text, even if the lines are a readable length. (I had a quick look at your site and was vastly disappointed to see that the lines were, indeed, 8-12 words on average, thus precluding my saying "Physician, heal thyself".)

mrottenkolber 12y ago
I know it sounds harsh but fact is that today's web design ignores past science. Book design is a very well understood design problem which has its roots in ergonomics and not in graphic design. I don't mean to discredit the "99%"s graphic design skills, in fact I find many graphic design works on the web astonishing and have huge respect for graphic designers (because I really suck at it, but love it a lot). Their book design education appears to be underdeveloped though and for websites ergonomics are more important than graphic design. Thats just the way it is. Book design is an amazing field by the way. For latin characters it was pioneered by hand written bibles in the medival ages. I only know a few things about it, barely enough to see that its a dying art. :( Edit: Oh and you cannot "personaly dislike" a book design work. Its the only art I know which has definitive right or wrongs, black or whites, yes or nos. There is only one correct way to typeset any given text.
- njr123 12y ago
  I am soo glad that viewpoint is on the way out, and we no longer have to live on the web equivalent of a brutalist concrete cube.
- julian_t 12y ago
  Hmmm… I certainly do have the freedom to personally dislike a book design, whether the authorities say I should or not. And if that makes me typographically illiterate, then so be it ;-) In fact, I find the line lengths in many properly typeset works too short for me to read comfortably. For me, longer lines make for easier reading!
- nostrademons 12y ago
  People don't read websites, they skim them. Web design is much more akin to poster or presentation design than book design.

mrottenkolber 12y ago

I know it sounds harsh but fact is that today's web design ignores past science. Book design is a very well understood design problem which has its roots in ergonomics and not in graphic design. I don't mean to discredit the "99%"s graphic design skills, in fact I find many graphic design works on the web astonishing and have huge respect for graphic designers (because I really suck at it, but love it a lot). Their book design education appears to be underdeveloped though and for websites ergonomics are more important than graphic design. Thats just the way it is. Book design is an amazing field by the way. For latin characters it was pioneered by hand written bibles in the medival ages. I only know a few things about it, barely enough to see that its a dying art. :( Edit: Oh and you cannot "personaly dislike" a book design work. Its the only art I know which has definitive right or wrongs, black or whites, yes or nos. There is only one correct way to typeset any given text.

njr123 12y ago
I am soo glad that viewpoint is on the way out, and we no longer have to live on the web equivalent of a brutalist concrete cube.
julian_t 12y ago
Hmmm… I certainly do have the freedom to personally dislike a book design, whether the authorities say I should or not. And if that makes me typographically illiterate, then so be it ;-) In fact, I find the line lengths in many properly typeset works too short for me to read comfortably. For me, longer lines make for easier reading!
nostrademons 12y ago
People don't read websites, they skim them. Web design is much more akin to poster or presentation design than book design.