Discussion
I long for a world wide web that goes back to basics: Markdown for text, JPEG or PNG for images, *no* Javascript or other client-side execution, designed to be writable by a human being with a simple text editor and no fucking interactive/dynamic bullshit. Make it as advertising hostile as possible. And above all keep it *small* (as in: a large, sprawling web site should fit on 16Mb USB stick).
In other words, web like it's 1996 again.
@cstross and forms! We need a drop dead simple standardized way to create and fill in forms, that works online or in a local file, without having to deal with PDFs. Make the appearance non customizable, except by the end user, for their accessibility needs.
@cstross I don't remember Markdown being much of a thing in 1996.
I'd quite like it if everything was HTML1. No frames, no stylesheets. And preferably no fonts either. Font selection and colour scheme should be down to the user to set in their browser.
Requirement for each web page of a commercial site back then was max. 10 kByte per page INCLUDING images.
Multiple web sites had to fit on a 1.2 MB floppy.
Quick question, genuinly wondering: why no webp and/or avif?
@cstross
I think we probably don't have any other chance, anymore, considering the way shit is going
@cstross
2027-01-01: MiniWeb deployed
2027-01-13: Arguments on best added markup to indicate BLINK peak on MiniReddit
2027-01-15: Markdown Dialect Wars begin
2027-02-03: MarkdownAI closes $273 billion funding round
2027-02-19: Advocates for a simpler TextWeb recommend returning to Usenet markup in USASCII
2027-02-21: UKASCII partisans invade TextWeb discussion forum and £ people they disagree with
...
(1/2)
@cstross it’s always been there. CSS and JavaScript are both good things when *used suitably*.
Fuck bullshit nostalgia.
@cstross ...and you could sell a second edition of "The Web architect's handbook"?
<Moose hides in nuclear bunker for fear of massive retaliation>
@cstross can we keep gifs at least. and club penguin
Grumpy man grumpies.
See https://modernmotherfuckingwebsite.dreamstation.systems
I'm not sure about Markdown. It still needs to be compiled, and it's not a well-defined standard.
@cstross
I'm probably one of the few people who can still code an html website. I began doing it text only in the late 90s, but now use a very old piece of software called Kompozer (Mozilla). Yes, I still have a website like that.
@cstross In 1996, I could copy-paste vector graphics, sounds, animations and even 3D models…
@cstross looking at how many people are starting to publish their sites in gopher or gemini... yeah, a lot of us. a *lot* of us yearn for that ^_^
@cstross I wouldn't even complain if that mean <marquee> came back
@cstross Is this a subtoot of https://modernmotherfuckingwebsite.dreamstation.systems/
?
Install bonfire.cafe
Get the full app experience
@cstross @alice 1996 took so many tables to create an acceptable design. It needed all to be rewritten when resolutions scaled from 640 to 800 pixels.