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>>Clearly writing some 'basic CSS' is not hard but writing future proof CSS that will remain compatible with all the devices that do not exist yet is next to im

>>Clearly writing some 'basic CSS' is not hard but writing future proof CSS that will remain compatible with all the devices that do not exist yet is next to impossible. Considering that the problem exists in the present and is very real, I'm not sure why not being able to write future-proof CSS is a big issue. How often do commonly-used CSS properties (e.g. font-size) become outdated? When was the last time you had to re-write the stylesheets on one of your websites? >>And that's ignoring for the moment the burden of testing a website on all possible devices I think the HN userbase is not only capable but also would be willing to perform this testing. Deploy the website on a separate directory (e.g. news.combinator.com/newdesign/etc.) and direct users who opt into the beta there. Heck, I bet there's quite a few people here who would love to take it on as a volunteer project.

jacquesm 12y ago
It's not about capability it's about where the burden should lie. Future readers should be compatible with past documents, not the other way around. Case in point: the geocities files that were backed-up and are on display from a variety of sources (including mine, but also the internet archive and archive team) are static, no longer in maintenance. The same goes for all of the internet archive. If you want to see that content at any point in the future you had better hope that the browsers are the ones to adapt to the past because the past is certainly not going to adapt to the browser and as the web ages there will only be more of the past and relatively speaking less of the present. The web is aging rapidly and the current development of modern browsers on modern devices failing to render sites that are only a few years old properly is a worrisome one. HN is in fact one of the least affected sites in this respect.

jacquesm 12y ago

It's not about capability it's about where the burden should lie. Future readers should be compatible with past documents, not the other way around. Case in point: the geocities files that were backed-up and are on display from a variety of sources (including mine, but also the internet archive and archive team) are static, no longer in maintenance. The same goes for all of the internet archive. If you want to see that content at any point in the future you had better hope that the browsers are the ones to adapt to the past because the past is certainly not going to adapt to the browser and as the web ages there will only be more of the past and relatively speaking less of the present. The web is aging rapidly and the current development of modern browsers on modern devices failing to render sites that are only a few years old properly is a worrisome one. HN is in fact one of the least affected sites in this respect.