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Review my site - thefabulicious.com | ejs: First impressions:
The url at first did not seem pronounceable.
I really had no idea what the site was for when I got there, then I read the page title in the browser, made more sense. But I still dont understand...Seems like random (female oriented) items for sale? The idea seems fine and the design looks nice, Maybe just a little clarification as to what one is supposed to do there? |
Review my site - thefabulicious.com | unalone: I'm not a fan of the "sharing links" or rating stars. How often do you expect people to share an item here? It doesn't look like stuff that would be quickly submitted, since it's product sales. It adds clutter. Rating I like, but stars? Too generic. It's not adding anything.I like the layout. Dunno what the audience will be - this isn't my kind of site - but it looks good and mostly clean. Question: how do I sign up to add my own things, if I think it's good? Is there a community for that? Or do I have to contact you directly? |
Review my site - thefabulicious.com | donniefitz2: I took a quick look. Overall, the first thing that I thought was, "Oh, this is an e-commerce site for women". That's just the first thing that popped into my mind upon looking it over. |
Review my site - thefabulicious.com | wushupork: Just a little clarification on the site - it's just going to feature cool stuff for women. It doesn't necessarily have to be stuff to buy. Basically anything a fashionista would think is cool and worth sharing. This can be a site, a movie, goods, services - whatever.Having a tagline is a good idea.This is a very early version - basically just see if women even care about this sort of thing. Having profiles and a community would definitely be a cool thing to do. |
Review my site - thefabulicious.com | thomatas: I don't think I'm the target audience, but it looks nice and clean to me. Lots of big pictures all on one page is good for browsing quickly. Maybe give me an option of how many items to display on a page? |
Review my site - thefabulicious.com | wushupork: also ideas on how the site could be expanded and business models would also be appreciated |
What are your criteria for hiring? | mixmax: smart and gets things done.http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000073.html |
Is this idea any good? | arien: Err, I find it odd. If I received a packet of dirt from a friend I would be amused, but it would probably end pouring it all over his head. Just kidding... or not.But, if I had to choose a green gift it would rather be a baby tree or seeds to plant. So maybe you can add these to your dirt packages for a small fee ;) |
Review my site - thefabulicious.com | yan: I remember that teapot from the Jelly (http://www.workatjelly.com/) video! |
Building a trust system into a social app | bjclark: There's a larger concept that I think you are overlooking. Real identity vs Hidden Identity (or Psuedo Identity). This is the fundamental difference between Facebook and Myspace. People tend to act very differently when they are using their own identity (portrait of themselves, real name, etc), sometimes negating the need to even have a "karma" type system.Also, if your "social" app requires friend requests/acceptance, as most "social" apps do, you further negate the need for a trust system. This is because the mere existence of friending/friend clusters are used in place of a trust system. You're implicitly trusting everyone you "friend". |
Review my site - thefabulicious.com | bprater: Explain in one sentence why I need your site, what it does and why my present "system of sites" isn't good enough.And then put that sentence on your site. |
Your job Removes your access to new.ycombinator.com, but not YCombinator.com? | arien: Don't you think that if they find out you got around it they would not be too happy about it?I usually just quickly peek at the RSS at work and visit the site at lunch break or at home, much safer this way (and I get less distracted). |
Review my site - thefabulicious.com | wushupork: I may be wrong on this, but assuming the readers are mostly male here, I would also appreciate it if you should it to your SOs - I'd really like their impressions and feedback. |
Building a trust system into a social app | sachinag: Self-link: http://www.slideshare.net/dawdledotcom/actually-useful-trust...I give this presentation pretty often and am happy to get into the details with you depending on your needs.EDIT: Jesus, I didn't realize the notes didn't make it to SlideShare. The point is that it's best to gather all the data you can, then tweak how you do it. The more obscure your public-facing metric, the more flexibility you have to adapt it as time changes.Here's a great intro guide from Yahoo: http://developer.yahoo.com/ypatterns/parent.php?pattern=repu... |
Does clicking voting arrows *sometimes* take you to a blank page? | cstejerean: Yes, it's happened to me with nightly WebKit builds and I figured out exactly how to replicate it.* Visit homepage
* Click on some story link
* Hit the back button to go back to the homepage
* Try to vote up the linkIt consistently happened any time I tried to vote after hitting the back button. The solution was to always refresh the page after hitting the back button. However, a recent nightly upgrade fixed the problem for me. Are you running the latest WebKit? |
Review my site - thefabulicious.com | jwesley: You need a tagline that explains what the site is and differentiates in from competitors. I would also nix the advertising. For a new site with little traffic it won't make you much money and undermines your brand. I think you'll also find most of your revenue comes from affiliate commissions related to the products you feature. Send your traffic away via ads will probably reduce your revenue.I would also remove all the bookmark buttons under the items. Those sites aren't really reception to the type of content you have for the most part and power users are quite capable of submitting on their own.That said I really like the layout and think it's a great idea for a site. If you put effort in more editorial blog style content surrounding the products, you could generate quite a following. |
Building a trust system into a social app | tokenadult: Likewise, I also want both the system and other users to be able to implicitly and explicitly recognize those users that should be trusted, based on the value of the content they have submitted.I don't know what the subject matter of your site will be, but if this is your goal it will be very important to seed the initial membership of your site with persons who are known, on independent grounds, to have strong subject matter knowledge. I presume there will be back-and-forth among participants so that if one person says "Freedom is slavery," another person can disagree and say, "Actually, freedom is not slavery." But presumably your site will be intended to benefit visitors who really can't tell the difference about much more detailed and debatable issues.I'll give an example. There is a site about college admission anxieties, College Confidential,http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/in which many participants make factual claims about how to reverse-engineer the college admission process. One common way for people to attempt to gain credibility on that site is to insinuate that they used to be admission officers at some highly selective college. Because the site is "confidential," that is its users use screen names rather than real names, it is often very difficult to verify such claims. It has not escaped my notice that users with chutzpah and a refusal to acknowledge push-back from other users can often be believed by onlookers even when making quite incredible and unverifiable statements. If you think this would be a problem on your site, you might want to think about how to designate verifiably more accurate and honest users in some way that is visible to all visitors.In general, I think the initial seeding of the membership of an online community is very important. That is one thing that HN conspicuously got right. |
Review my site - thefabulicious.com | jmatt: I wasn't quite sure what the site was about when I first landed there. Maybe some explanation about the site and a byline would help. Something like "everything that girls like". I just found that quote on the about page. If it was on the homepage it would help. Though the pink F favicon is a good indicator. |
What do you want to be able to customize? | prakash: - the ability to ignore certain hostnames
- option to follow submissions + comments of certain people on one page ala friendfeed
- gmail label type customization to follow certain people |
Kiwi programmer keen to work in the U.S. for 1-2 years. Bad idea? Any advice? | anamax: > I've lived in New Zealand most of my life, but I'm a U.S. citizen, so I don't think work permits will be an issue.The US doesn't have work permits for its citizens.Do other countries have work permits for their citizens? On what grounds are they denied? If they're not denied, what's the intent? What's the effect? |
Building a trust system into a social app | theklub: I have a similar problem which a website I'm building. Right now I'm having the users keep the data in their accounts until they submit it to be public. They are awarded points for good data which unfortunately needs to be human reviewed. |
Is this idea any good? | yan: How is removing dirt, that is capable of sustaining life in its present form, and using resources to package it, using fuels to potentially ship it, and displacing it to probably a landfill (people will probably throw them out once the novelty wears off) green by any stretch of the imagination? Also using corn (which can be either food or fuel) and tying it up with a gag gift isn't very green. |
Review my site - thefabulicious.com | hotshothenry: That tea pot is so bomb, me want =) |
How do you get new freelance jobs/contracts? | kungfooey: Craigslist is a crapshoot. As are most other online gig-engines (elance, odesk, etc). Granted, I have very little experience with them, but just browsing them reveals poor leads, poor pay, and you're generally competing with guys in eastern Europe and India who are going to eat your lunch with low rates.The alternative is setting up locally. All decent-sized cities have networking opportunities, things like "Business Networking International" where it's highly structured towards referrals (and while useful, sort of MLM-ish), or things like Open Coffee or Geek Breakfast. Also there are usually user groups in your preferred industry or programming language (PHP, Python, etc). Get out there. One of the biggest mistakes I see newbie freelancers/contractors make is that they expect jobs to come to them. If you troll the internet for leads you're also competing against a bunch of other yahoos who are sitting in their pajamas. Your leads will be fewer, and of a lower quality. Get out there, shake some hands, show your face, and hopefully when people think, "Hey, I need a [X]" they will think of you. If you get out there, you never know what will generate business. I had one fifteen minute conversation with a guy and he has been directly responsible at least a quarter of my business for 2008 via referrals.Obviously referrals from existing happy clients are paramount. Whenever I complete a project, I always mention that the best sort of compliment is a referral. If they're happy with you, they won't mind giving your name if they know that you can do the job.I don't blog much. I do use twitter, but found it to only be marginally useful in generating business. It is somewhat good at staying in touch with past clients. LinkedIn is mostly a rolodex, good for little else than getting spam from recruiters. |
Is this idea any good? | jwesley: No, I doubt this could ever be a real business. Even if it catches on, you'd have to sell millions of these dirt packets to ever make any money. There was a thread on HN about a condom key chain business that failed for this reason. Even though they sold thousands of them, it doesn't add up to much when you only make a few pennies per unit. |
Review my site - thefabulicious.com | cmos: It all seems a bit vague. For instance, why would something be listed on here? What are the standards? If there are different standards for different categories then put these in a summary at the top of the page.For instance, with fashion, are you trying to be on the cutting edge or price sensitive? Are you seasonal?If you want your audience to relate to the site then they need to know what your standards are. You can't just go for 'all women'. Figure out your exact demographics and tailor your selections for them. If it's 20's and 30's professionals then have 'fashionable working wear' and 'friday night on the town' stuff. (and you don't need a 'myspace' icon since they are all on facebook)The descriptions are moderately witty, but it would be good if there were a 'person' behind it, even their initials. Then later on when you are getting submissions from your user base they can sort + find authors with whom they have similar taste's.And when I clicked on the 'obama cupcakes' there is an odd picture under 'related posts'... apparently it's for a music festival, though just showing the image under 'related posts' with no caption underneath is, well, just kinda odd. Mixing events that are location based can be tricky and alienating because most of your audience won't live in austin and probably won't travel to a music festival, though again it depends on the demographic you are trying to reach (college road trip?).The 'buy it' and 'originator' links are mostly the same. I thought 'originator' would link me to the person who is recommending this.. again, then I would have more of a 'warm and fuzzy' if I knew the interests of the person behind it appearing here. And because they are on the search pages, I didn't actually click on a box until a bit later when was wondering where the 'related posts' section was that a previous person had commented on. |
Building a trust system into a social app | jfarmer: "but giving users unrestricted ability to input content would quickly fill the site with noise"Would it? Have you tested it? How do you know?"I need to have a good way to identify not only spammers and users who might try to game the system, but users who may inadvertently put in noise/bad data."Do you really need it? What's the worst that happens if you leave it out? What's the best? What's the likelihood of each? What data do you base that calculation on?"Likewise, I also want both the system and other users to be able to implicitly and explicitly recognize those users that should be trusted, based on the value of the content they have submitted."Sounds complicated. Why do you "need" to solve this problem? Do you even know it's a problem yet?I'd put the simplest product in front of users and see what happens. Maybe you won't have to build your mega-meta-trust-network after all. That seems like a win. |
Is this (S3 on GAE) something people want? | anamax: I'll bet that there's more demand for GAE on AWS. |
Review my site - thefabulicious.com | lastkarrde: First impressions: Site wide design is good, banner looks a little 'Text Generated'. The flashy ad up the top is a little annoying. Mayby try replacing it with static text, or put adwords in between the products listed. |
First freelance job. Any tips on contracts? | ghuber: Hey ballpark, I wanna help you out. I just wrote a rock solid contract for my web dev biz.. Email me and I'll hook you up - graham@somethingpretty.ca |
Is this idea any good? | inc: Maybe you could sell them to vacuum salesmen. |
Your job Removes your access to new.ycombinator.com, but not YCombinator.com? | brk: A proxy?Build your own ssh or ssl tunnel through another box you control?The possibilities are endless. |
Review my site - thefabulicious.com | dpifke: Nice layout and idea. My girlfriend spends an inordinate amount of time online "browsing pretty things" so I think you may be onto something here. Reminds me a bit of a more-visual and more-female version of Thrillist.How are the items selected? I tried clicking the "Suggest" link in the menubar, but it's linked to #.The "Buy it" link for the first item on the home page (Art Noveau Portrait Bag) takes me to a page that says, "Online Ordering is temporarily unavailable. Please call (312)698-8685 for availability and to place your order. Thanks!" Could be a frustrating experience for end-users, and implies that you need somewhat better feedback from the merchant about what's featured (or maybe vote up/vote down functionality for users).Also, I agree with the previous comments about the ads - they're visually jarring. If they're required as part of your business model, maybe there's a way to better integrate them into the site design? |
anyone in SF need a kickass frontend developer? | jwesley: I've been in a situation similar to this, where management just did not get it. They would ask for our input, but then never act on it.You are on the right track by looking for a way out. The company is doomed. I left and it has worked out great. |
Why hasn't anyone launched a Feedburner competitor since their collapse? | fnazeeri: I think there is a market opportunity. Google has basically abandoned Feedburner. They have been doing a "migration" and my experience with that was terrible. It basically blew up and lost subscribers. And I'm not alone. If you look at the Feedburner "help group" http://groups.google.com/group/feedburner-statistics/topics?... you'll see a ton of people complaining about lost subscribers and there is not one response from anyone at Google. |
anyone in SF need a kickass frontend developer? | dreamz: startup may be one of your option, join one or start one and be ready for low pay, high fun and may be some equity ... :-) |
What do you want to be able to customize? | biohacker42: Only see submissions from selected HN users. |
Your job Removes your access to new.ycombinator.com, but not YCombinator.com? | cmos: Stop going to work. |
Your job Removes your access to new.ycombinator.com, but not YCombinator.com? | pclark: SSH Tunnel is your best bet - you're a hacker, use your initiative. |
What do you want to be able to customize? | gills: Some simple tagging and a way to add links to custom views on the top bar -- so I can have a view of all the "Review my Startup" submissions and the "YC Startup XXX launched today" submissions. (def customize-nav-bar
(lambda ()
(filtered-view 'Startups'
(lambda (submission)
(tagged-as 'startup'))
(filtered-view 'YC Startups'
(lambda (submission)
(tagged-as 'YC startup'))
(filtered-view 'Ask HN'
(lambda (submission)
(tagged-as 'Ask')) |
Your job Removes your access to new.ycombinator.com, but not YCombinator.com? | hs: have u tried tor / torify instead of socks5 ssh tunnel? |
anyone in SF need a kickass frontend developer? | mmmurf: Are you interested in a low pay situation? My startup doesn't have the revenue at present to pay you much, but you'd have a big hand in shaping the direction of the product and a friendly, happy atmosphere. And obviously we expect some revenue soon. Shoot me an email at gmail if you want to discuss. |
anyone in SF need a kickass frontend developer? | abyssknight: If you are seriously looking to go to SF you should have no problem. I was looking for positions last year and the east coast just kept calling. That said, you will be working for a start up given your requirements which lends itself to the very condition you are describing. You'll have a ton of fun, learn a lot, but eventually the mess will hit the fan and you'll have unrealistic timetables and a grab bag of management woes.Building the future is an excellent goal and something to strive for, but if you want stability and dependable management I'd head for corporate America. They have the capital to hire decent managers, train you for free, and give you realistic deadlines. Couple that with realistic hours, and maybe you'll have more time to experiment.Zed Shaw put it perfectly, "Fight your hardest not to be a corporate coder: your life as a geek or a coder should be all about exploring some new domain that no one else gets -- you can only go to conferences and talk to other geeks about what you do. A corporate coder works only on the stuff he's supposed to on one language, and never touches code otherwise. You should go home and do something fun with technology."http://vimeo.com/2723800A disclaimer, I work for a giant corporation. I work on things that I think don't matter, but to the people on the ground building our products, the tools I help build and deploy mean a lot. They prevent accidents, environmental hazards, and close calls.Then I go home and hack on Python, PHP, .NET, and Arduino. And play Rockband. |
Review my site - thefabulicious.com | BenS: I would suggest looking @ notcot.org and notcouture. People love it, they seem to make money, and you can learn a lot about (1) how to present non-standard images in an appealing way, and (2) the types of inventory/writing that appeals to folks.Also, i like your username. |
anyone in SF need a kickass frontend developer? | danielha: Disqus is looking for one. We're in SOMA (2nd & Howard) - shoot me an email: daniel@disqus.com |
Is this idea any good? | RobGR: Wildflower propagators make small golf-ball sized balls of dirt with native flower seeds in them, to be tossed into empty lots and other likely places. The idea is that the seed is protected until rain melts the dirtball, and then it can sprout and has a starting batch of nutrient right there.You could probably sell those, and work some gimicky advertising off the "dirtball" name. You could probably get some wildflower propagators to make them for you for free, if you gave back to their organization from each sale. |
Your job Removes your access to new.ycombinator.com, but not YCombinator.com? | tristmegistus: My job's web proxy also just started blocking news.ycombinator.com. My guess is the "hacker" news got added to the filter software we use. I plan to appeal the block with IT. The blocking page tells me who to call to do this. I develop software for them, so the site is relevant to my work. |
anyone in SF need a kickass frontend developer? | daveambrose: Upvoted to help you out. Good luck! |
anyone in SF need a kickass frontend developer? | steveplace: Are you a "code ninja"? |
Review my site - thefabulicious.com | rokhayakebe: Beautiful concept. You are definitely targeting a market made of people who like to spend on nice stuff. The nice aspect of such people is that they are spendaholics, and will buy nice stuff before they take care of rather important matters. |
anyone in SF need a kickass frontend developer? | gibsonf1: StreamFocus.com is looking for one. We just got a new CEO and are planning a major UI redesign. Our backend is all in Lisp, but the frontend is going increasingly toward javascript and ajax. Let me know if you're interested: fred@streamfocus.com |
Is Hacker News a Waste of Time? | tokenadult: The question is whether those 4 hour or so in the morning reading the guardian newspaper and then the articles on hackers news are worth it.Learning is generally worthwhile. Four hours each morning puts a lot of pressure on your schedule to be efficient in other activities, like running your start-up or caring for your family. |
Is Hacker News a Waste of Time? | sam_in_nyc: I'm going to admit that I barely read any of your post. I'm just going to answer: Your question is like asking "Is the Internet a Waste of Time?" It really depends.The stories are generally titled in such a way that I ignore stuff that I already know, don't need to know, don't care about, etc.Conversely, I read the stories that seem interesting or relevant. There's a lot of cutting edge stuff discussed here and I like that. I haven't been here long enough for any one particular thing about HN to piss me off yet, either.So, yeah.. it's a waste of time if you waste your time. And it's not a waste of time if there's a takeaway. So make a point to learn something each time you go on HN. |
Is Hacker News a Waste of Time? | otoburb: A few points:
1. 4 hours in the morning reading anything is quite a long time. Perhaps if you were to reduce the number of hours, this would force you to reduce your intake and be more productive. This is based on the assumption that you have a vague feeling after morning reading periods that you have 'wasted' your time, possibly due to the numerous other things you could have accomplished in half that time.2. Certain interests (e.g. awareness of a recession and industry news) may help you to prepare yourself in case war, famine or other problems that may appear to be global start to affect your neighborhood, job, family or friends. This point is based on the assumption that you, your family and/or friends you care about could be affected by these issues.For me, interesting is good enough. I'd like to point out that my interests have been changing recently as I think more and more about scenarios involving a loss of income, and taking appropriate investment/skills actions. |
CSS vs table based layouts | noodle: a 30 second review:tables: easier to design with and more intuitive for people who aren't well-versed in css.css: much greater flexibility, smaller code, separation of design and information |
anyone in SF need a kickass frontend developer? | briansugar: Sugar Inc (popsugar.com, shopstyle.com, etc) is looking for a kickass frontend developer to help make 50 women editors happy.We are at 111 Sutter. brian@sugarinc.com |
anyone in SF need a kickass frontend developer? | kehunt: If you're not happy at work, do whatever you have to do to change it -- even if you need to quit and build up a portfolio for a few months. I left a stable but miserable existence at IBM a couple years ago, and now enjoy every single day I'm working with my startup colleagues. Life's too short to be miserable.We are looking for another top-notch front end dev here at Zivity. Feel free to email me at kevin@kev.in if you want to grab a beer at 21A some evening. |
anyone in SF need a kickass frontend developer? | geuis: Thank you to everyone who has contacted me, commented here, and started following me on Twitter. I REALLY appreciate the outpouring of support from the HN community. I will be getting in touch with everyone who has contacted me ASAP! |
anyone in SF need a kickass frontend developer? | theklub: I'm looking for a co-founder on a project I've been working on for some time. If your interested shoot me an email. Mine's jklub at live.com |
anyone in SF need a kickass frontend developer? | callmeed: Are you interested in telecommuting from home for an OR-based company? |
Is this idea any good? | tom_rath: Cute idea, but it sounds like a nasty way of introducing non-native microbes and insects to new places and would likely do far more long-term harm than good. |
Building a trust system into a social app | bayareaguy: advogato tried to do this for open source developers. http://advogato.org/trust-metric.html |
Your job Removes your access to new.ycombinator.com, but not YCombinator.com? | pageman: http://gaza.freehost123.co.cc/glipe/ |
Is Hacker News a Waste of Time? | vaksel: Everything is good in moderation. If you spend 24/7 on HN then yes its a bad idea. But if you spend 1-2 hours per day its really not that bad.+ with HN you get to read a lot of stuff that you yourself wouldn't have found otherwise. |
anyone in SF need a kickass frontend developer? | nazgulnarsil: experiment with drastically reducing your productivity. if no one notices great, you now have time to spend on personal projects and get paid. If people notice look for a new job.I don't understand why everyone doesn't do this at jobs they dislike. |
Where to form an LLC | jhancock: Given your parameters, the thing to keep in mind is where you are incorporated in case you need to defend yourself in a lawsuit. It is almost always better to defend on you home turf as opposed to taking trips and hiring lawyers in Delaware.IANAL, but I have been involved in lawsuits. Home turf advantage can be a good thing. |
Where to form an LLC | menloparkbum: You want to form the LLC in the state where you live and do all your work. There is no advantage to forming an LLC in a different state. Other business entities (S, C corp) are a different story. |
Is Hacker News a Waste of Time? | bayareaguy: It doesn't necessarily start out as a waste of time but it can become one if you spend too much time on it. I try to restrict myself to reading YC when recompiling stuff on my powerbook. At the beginning of the build I use open -a Opera http://news.ycombinator.com
and at the end I have open -a Opera make.out
That way the browser automatically takes me to the build output when it's time to get back to coding. |
CSS vs table based layouts | shutter: If you have the time, use CSS. For prototyping you could use tables perhaps, but for the real thing, tables are considered bad form and inflexible. |
CSS vs table based layouts | gruseom: Doesn't your question include its answer? Guilt is not a very productive motivation.I've noticed that once people settle on something as "the" right way, they measure everything against that yardstick. This is so common, I wonder if having a yardstick -- an easy way to answer questions -- is the purpose of settling on "the" right way in the first place.Software people do this a lot because software projects are so uncertain: if you can do anything (computable), why do X rather than Y? That's overwhelming, so we look for paradigms and processes and yardsticks. These reduce hard questions like "is this good" to easy ones like "is it standards-compliant". It's like the drunk looking for his keys under a streetlight, rather than down the block where he dropped them, because the light is better.I noticed this when everyone around me was equating "good" programming with "object-oriented" programming. It was too hard to answer "is this good", so people instead would answer "is this OO". I caught myself doing it one day and was shocked. I decided never to use the phrase "the right way" again, but always to replace it with "a right way".The trouble with the yardstick instinct, of course, is when it produces fake reductions. It gives you false positives ("it must be good because it's OO, CSS, or whatever") and false negatives ("it must be bad because it isn't"). I think the false negatives are more harmful than the false positives; they shut down options and inhibit creativity. There's a joke in which a Frenchman says to an Englishman, "I can see it works in practice, but does it work in theory?" (Told by an Englishman of course.)Coming back to CSS vs. tables: if it looks good, is fun for you to make (apart from guilt), and does what users want (or will get you there), what's bad about that? Conversely, if it's hard to make, not fun (apart from guilt relief), and doesn't make things look better or work better, what's good about that?This is way more than I intended to write, damn you, but one more thing: if you haven't, go read Adam Bosworth's classic 2004 talk on the web as the triumph of the "simple, sloppy, and flexible". I can't recommend it enough. It addresses all of this profoundly.Edit: Surprisingly, it hadn't been posted to HN, so I just did. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=447086Edit 2: Whenever I recommend that piece to someone I go back and re-read it. How's this for apropos:What is more, in one of the unintended ironies of software history, HTML was intended to be used as a way to provide a truly malleable plastic layout language which never would be bound by 2 dimensional limitations, ironic because hordes of CSS fanatics have been trying to bind it with straight jackets ever since, bad mouthing tables and generations of tools have been layering pixel precise 2 dimensional layout on top of it. And yet, ask any gifted web author, like Jon Udell, and they will tell you that they often use it in the lazy sloppy intuitive human way that it was designed to work. They just pour in content. In 1996 I was at some of the initial XML meetings. The participants' anger at HTML for "corrupting" content with layout was intense. Some of the initial backers of XML were frustrated SGML folks who wanted a better cleaner world in which data was pristinely separated from presentation. In short, they disliked one of the great success stories of software history, one that succeeded because of its limitations, not despite them. I very much doubt that an HTML that had initially shipped as a clean layered set of content (XML, Layout rules - XSLT, and Formatting- CSS) would have had anything like the explosive uptake. |
CSS vs table based layouts | tripngroove: CSS layouts offer a whole host of advantages over their ancient table-based brethren. Historically, there has been a lot of discussion on this, but the conversation has basically been concluded with CSS layouts overwhelmingly recognized as the best option.A CSS layout lets your site be flexible, scalable and semantically pure. When you do a table-based layout, you're basically locked into that presentation unless you choose to overhaul all your files, and chances are good that you've also partially destroyed the semantics of your document, which ruins accessibility and can be bad for SEO. Tables were basically a layout hack that let designers solve a presentation problem for which adequate tools didn't exist; their true purpose is to display tabular data. When browser support for CSS became relatively ubiquitous, people gradually switched over because there was no longer any reason to suffer the inherent inadequacy of table-based layouts.Once you learn the syntax and the basics of how the box model works, CSS makes everything faster, easier, and more precise. By all accounts, it's the standard for web design nowadays.I think the proof is in the pudding though; csszengarden.com is a shining example of the benefits of CSS. Surf there, and you can select different stylesheets to be applied to the page. Same HTML, different CSS, hundreds of designs.alistapart.com is a great resource for discussion on the benefits of web standards and how to apply them. quirksmode.org has technical tips, and w3cshools.com has quick descriptions and examples of most almost everything web-design related. |
CSS vs table based layouts | carlio: http://www.giveupandusetables.com/http://shouldiusetablesforlayout.com/ |
anyone in SF need a kickass frontend developer? | raganwald: I know of an unadvertised opportunity with an extremely interesting team for a talented front-end developer/designer. HN folks can Send an email to reg@braythwayt.com for details, it isn't up on their web site yet so I'd prefer to keep the name off the web until it is public.And in the mean time, HN readers get a head start on the opening :-) |
CSS vs table based layouts | tptacek: Cheat. Use Blueprint, from Blue Flavor, which gives you semi-semantic layout in table style using DIVs and spans. Blueprint actually gives you more layout control than tables do --- your stuff will look better --- but gets rid of almost all the CSS headaches.Standards zealots get all up in Blueprint's face because it's fundamentally non-semantic (you end up putting presentation details in your markup). But now you're splitting hairs. If you're using Blueprint, you get to call yourself a CSS designer. |
Is Hacker News a Waste of Time? | Alcides: Be informed. Don't rely on YN only. And use it only if you can't get the same content through easier ways. |
Is Hacker News a Waste of Time? | ram1024: certainly spend as much time as you can afford to reading HN if you find it enjoyable.the line is drawn differently for everyone, you'll have to decide for yourself what constitutes as wasteful |
Is Hacker News a Waste of Time? | pj: HN is entertainment, but it's productive entertainment. Better than playing solitaire or freecell or something like that.There are posts here that make our lives better. I come here while I'm compiling code or uploading code or waiting on something for a short time... |
CSS vs table based layouts | sanj: I'm so glad I'm not the only one that feels this way.As far as I'm concerned, CSS is a miserable piece of work.
Witness how hard it is do a simple three column layout. It fails half of the simple edict:Make easy things easy and hard things possible. |
Is there "security issue notification for dummies?" (I discovered a hole...now what?) | cperciva: Generally the best approach is to contact someone who is part of the security world -- they'll both know how to approach the right people and have the credibility to get people to listen. |
Is Hacker News a Waste of Time? | puzzle-out: HN is the closest thing to communicating with like-minded people since leaving university. As long as it retains its diligent, unpretentious and insightful membership, it is a good use of time, so long as you don't overdo it. |
Is Hacker News a Waste of Time? | zenocon: 4 hours reading The Guardian every day -- holy lord...are you independently wealthy? Try just reading The Economist on the weekends. Maybe you'll feel less guilty about all the time you also spend on HN. |
Review my site - thefabulicious.com | jsmcgd: I found this site through yours. Hand crafted keyboards. Check 'em out: http://www.datamancer.net/keyboards/keyboardfaq.htmRegarding your site. I'm interested. Thumbs up. |
CSS vs table based layouts | jsdalton: I used to design using tables, then I learned how to do it in CSS and now I use CSS exclusively. There are only a few instances when I don't, namely:* When I want vertical centering and the column height is not fixed.* When I want the width of a column to expand to the width of its widest element, but no further.* If I wanted a background color to run the full length of a column, not just where the content was. (Actually there are CSS hacks for this, but I don't love them. I myself never use this design pattern any more, so it doesn't matter.)In other words, you can still deploy tables non semantically to address certain, specific challenges that are not easy in just CSS, while still predominantly using CSS for layout and tables for data. |
Is there "security issue notification for dummies?" (I discovered a hole...now what?) | gaius: Contact CERT - www.cert.org |
CSS vs table based layouts | Javache: Honestly, I've used CSS for as long as I've been slicing web pages (which is now a couple of years) It'd probably cost me more time designing with tables than with CSS. Once you understand the principles behind it, it's not that hard... (for me it feels like a lego-construction snapping together when a design falls into place)On the other hand, a professional designer often needs to know how to design with tables as well as it is practically the only way to design an email newsletter decently. |
Is Hacker News a Waste of Time? | abdulhaq: I very quickly gave up reading the comments on the guardian web site. Many, even a majority, are insulting and regurgitated opinions by people unopen to changing their mind, they simply want to shout their (often unappetising) opinion at you.HN on the contrary is populated by people (like myself, I hope) who wish to learn. They engage in discussion in order to improve themselves, not to win arguments.4 hours is far too long BTW. I'm sure there must be better things you can do. |
What web framework(s) do you guys use? | noodle: codeigniter and rails.rails because, well, its rails. building something out is typically quick and easy.codeigniter for those cases when i need to get my hands dirty on a lower level and do some non-standard things. its a minimalist framework that doesn't add much bloat, overhead or other things in your way.i kind of mentally compare it to java and c. |
CSS vs table based layouts | figured: HTML is the metadata around your content, and CSS is the style that you apply to your content. |
Is Hacker News a Waste of Time? | jsmcgd: Great question. I don't have an answer although I do know that reading hacker news != hacking. I too think I spend far too much time reading all the interesting topics posted to this site and that I should probably be doing something more active and less passive. You're not alone. |
What web framework(s) do you guys use? | rickharrison: codeigniter and more recently kohana.I like codeigniter a lot because you have more control over things. Frameworks that get things done extremely fast are nice, but I like to have more control over things. And Kohana was modeled after codeigniter, but in completely PHP5, which is why I like it the most. |
Review my site - thefabulicious.com | dmix: I would remove the ads until you have a user base. You won't make anything until then anyway. |
Building a trust system into a social app | peterbraden: I did a study on malicious behaviour in social networks, and in my research the best way to build trust seemed to be to encourage an identity - cheap pseudonyms tend to attract trolls. 2 secs and I'll look up the paper for you. |
Is Hacker News a Waste of Time? | mkn: First, only your post is a waste of time. (Zing!) But seriously, that all depends on what your goals are when you come here, how you use the site, and whether or not the site meets your goals.Second, some meta-advice about the "Trollish question? Although question might be trollish, it isn't because..." meme: Don't do it. If you have a question like that, then it really is trollish. If you think it isn't trollish, then you need to think about it some more, because you're missing something obvious. When you figure it out on your own, you're going to be so glad you didn't embarrass yourself by asking the smart people on HN such a--let's be frank about it--dumb question.I normally don't respond to posts of this kind, but it has become a line-in-the-sand issue for me because this meme, and so many others like it, seem recently to be running rampant through an otherwise useful site. We get replies of the form, "I'm obviously unqualified to talk about X, but here's my opinion on X," the afore-mentioned "Trollish Q? Not so because I think it's interesting," and so on.Think of it as being like farting loudly in an elevator. It doesn't matter if you have really bad gas, you wait until you're alone. Similarly, if you've got a vacuous question or opinion so unjustified that you have to qualify it by saying so, just don't air it in a public forum. You're wasting people's time. |
CSS vs table based layouts | pwoods: Although tables is easier than CSS, most browsers will render CSS almost the same way. But not always true for tables. Especially wider sites that need to shrink to fit a screen. I just weigh amount of work I have to do against how much I'm getting paid and do which ever way I feel comfortable with. |
Is Hacker News a Waste of Time? | pwoods: Yes, but so is working for a living. |
What web framework(s) do you guys use? | abdulhaq: If you do it yourself, does it count as a framework?Server: python, postgresql, cherrypy, simplejsonClient: Javascript, HTML, CSS, Dojo, AJAX.All the HTML is loaded up front and then AJAX for all the rest. Dojo insulates me from browser quirks. TDD Python is what I use at work (and love) and is good for complex algorithms (language morphology, in arabic).I don't use an all-encompassing framework because I need total UTF-8 support and I feel more comfortable with the general tailorability of the lower-level libraries over the likes of Django, Rails. |
Is Hacker News a Waste of Time? | jodrellblank: I hang around a lot of websites (passing the time), and websites like HN are full of entertainment ... but if I was honestly seeking self-improvement I would open some study material and study it.So, yes, I use it to waste my time. I could be doing better things assuming you believe in objective measures of such things. The addictive low-cal-information-firehose nature of the internet is my one weakness, as Miss Lane never said with a twinkle in her eye. |
anyone in SF need a kickass frontend developer? | sutro: I'll consider you, but first you'll have to prove your claim that you can "kick ass" -- fight club style. |
Is Hacker News a Waste of Time? | nx: It isn't. I've come up with a few great ideas in these threads. |
What web framework(s) do you guys use? | knieveltech: Drupal. |
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