[HN Gopher] HTML Design Principles (2007)
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       HTML Design Principles (2007)
        
       Author : kosasbest
       Score  : 84 points
       Date   : 2023-09-03 15:08 UTC (7 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.w3.org)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.w3.org)
        
       | shadowfacts wrote:
       | The whole document is good, but in particular, my favorite part
       | (that I reference not infrequently in conversations) is the
       | priority of constituencies:
       | 
       | > In case of conflict, consider users over authors over
       | implementors over specifiers over theoretical purity.
        
         | butterNaN wrote:
         | Seems like a good general advice in most cases
        
       | doublerabbit wrote:
       | I'm so bored of the "Do not Reinvent the Wheel" line.
       | 
       | Why? I want it to be my wheel, what is wrong with reinventing the
       | wheel?
       | 
       | Inventing creates innovation and innovation sparks creativity and
       | that's what programming is all about; creating. So if you don't
       | your stuck with someone's else invention, that's no fun. Why
       | should I use their invention and not mine?
       | 
       | If it makes the spec, what's the issue?
        
         | presidentender wrote:
         | If you're in the business of wheels, or if it is a hobby, make
         | wheels.
         | 
         | If you are in the business of carts, buy wheels.
         | 
         | If you are in the business of transportation, buy carts.
        
           | doublerabbit wrote:
           | > If you are in the business of carts, buy wheels.
           | 
           | I just don't agree with that logic. If you make your own
           | carts, innovating your own wheels will yield cheaper costs in
           | the long run. You have a new design and it could be something
           | better. In conjunction you can than produce your own cart to
           | that better design.
           | 
           | Sure your not a wheel business, so you don't sell your wheels
           | as that's not your specialty but you can now provide your own
           | wheels for your own carts.
           | 
           | Otherwise your vendor-locked to that manufacturer. And what
           | then if they decide to stop selling the wheels or carts that
           | you rely on, or increase the prices?
           | 
           | You don't have Amazon (Cart) selling Google's Infrastructure
           | (Wheels).
        
             | dahdum wrote:
             | Innovating your own wheels to sell carts requires capital
             | investment, time, effort, and risk. The saying is a rehash
             | of common advice to focus on core competencies and not
             | overextend.
             | 
             | If I sold, or even manufactured carts, I would not be eager
             | to enter the enormous, competitive, highly commoditized,
             | and mature wheel market. It sounds like a real battle to
             | get production costs even on par with wholesale, lacking
             | all the economies of scale, experience, and supply chain
             | agreements the major manufacturers have.
        
               | doublerabbit wrote:
               | Cause and effect. Due to of the rehash and sell-out as by
               | not re-inventing the wheel; in return has caused the
               | effect as you've mentioned above.
               | 
               | Where many had the opportunity to take the risk, didn't.
               | So now we live in the world where it's either A or B.
               | 
               | And I'm fed up to the point where my business, self-
               | funded is re-inventing the wheel regardless of the risks.
               | 
               | Besides the point, innovation has been stifled because of
               | no reinvention.
        
             | lwhi wrote:
             | It's not easy to do everything well .. and each stage of
             | the process requires expertise.
             | 
             | It's fairly good logic.
        
               | doublerabbit wrote:
               | Who says? Its flawed logic that for example makes the
               | internet or any product cheap and stale.
               | 
               | This era of mobile phones is a good example, when
               | providers created their own device before selling out to
               | Android, it was a fantastical place. Now when choosing a
               | phone all you have is a different same rectangle with the
               | same OS.
               | 
               | If you hire the expertise, you add that in to cost factor
               | of your company. Or you set a budget and in creating your
               | own variant while you sell your first.
               | 
               | I open a cookie shop. I sell pre-made cookies that taste
               | amazing and make customers happy.
               | 
               | You hire the kitchen staff to make your own cookies, not
               | as good and they don't sell as well.
               | 
               | You keep going and keep growing the quality as you slow
               | down selling the amazing cookies.
               | 
               | Because as an scenario, say the company who's providing
               | you with amazing cookie changes their recipe for budget
               | cuts and now they're now not selling as good as before,
               | bland and sickly. You lose sales and by not reinventing
               | the cookie you lose quality, rep and profits.
               | 
               | I'm just amazed no one can give me a good case to why
               | not. Innovation is what's missing from this world.
        
               | vore wrote:
               | If you're selling cookies, are you going to be milling
               | your own flour from self-grown wheat? The original post
               | was just saying at some point you are drawing a line
               | between what you consider to be your competency versus
               | what is not.
        
               | doublerabbit wrote:
               | Regardless to how stubborn it makes to the comment, Yes.
               | I don't see why not. There is no versus to be had. We are
               | always competing, it doesn't have too. As in the end all
               | that really matters is making the consumer,customer, end
               | result happy.
               | 
               | By milling the raw grain, you can then make your own
               | machine. With that machine reduces the production costs.
               | It's not a task that can happen overnight.
               | 
               | But to own a piece of land and to make raw produce from
               | that isn't trivial.
        
               | vore wrote:
               | I agree that you can always own more of the vertical to
               | potentially make the customer happier, but you will
               | always reach the point of diminishing returns. How much
               | happier will your customer be with your homegrown flour
               | versus King Arthur flour you picked up at the store? Is
               | the cost (money _and_ time) worth the possible marginal
               | increase in happiness? If you manufacture your own
               | machine, does the capital expenditure of doing so even
               | offset operational expenditure over how long you even
               | plan to be making cookies?
               | 
               | Running a business is not about innovating at all costs
               | at all times, it's about using what time and money you
               | have on hand to optimize customer satisfaction. Whether
               | it's off-the-shelf wheels for carts or grinding your own
               | flour, you have to draw the line somewhere otherwise you
               | are just optimizing for some theoretical optimum. Maybe
               | when you have some more slack in the budget it's time to
               | think about reinventing the wheel, but doing so at the
               | get-go is already losing sight of the customer.
        
         | madeofpalk wrote:
         | For the user, the problem is if you reinvent the wheel poorly.
         | Remember all those terrible 'scroll jacking' website?
         | 
         | The bar to reinvent the wheel has to be high. You should have
         | significant value to add, and you've got to re-implement all
         | the other behavior users expect.
        
         | eimrine wrote:
         | Text areas, scroll bars, select inputs.
        
           | zdragnar wrote:
           | Select inputs are a decent example of why people reinvent
           | things. There's no native combobox type input; html5 gave us
           | list input + datalist, but no multiple selection. If
           | anything, the select element has been a perfect example of a
           | bad interface design: it is extremely difficult to use with
           | large lists, but the lack of native combobox has had people
           | reinventing the select input for years.
           | 
           | Number inputs have always been a vile thing to work with, as
           | is the "required" attribute.
        
       | kdkirsch wrote:
       | When posting old pages/articles it may help if the OP explained
       | why they are sharing on HN. Is there a particular question it
       | answers? Is there some development that has made the article more
       | or less useful/accurate? A comment would help guide additional
       | comments.
        
         | layer8 wrote:
         | The reason why the submitter found it interesting doesn't need
         | to be the same as why the upvoters found it interesting.
        
           | Wowfunhappy wrote:
           | I wholeheartedly agree, but I do appreciate it when
           | submitters leave a top-level comment alongside the
           | submission. There's no need for it to be special in any way,
           | but it can help seed discussion IMO.
        
         | chefandy wrote:
         | I see most internet forums as discussion groups where posts
         | start out as invitations to conversation. However, I see HN
         | more like a physical bulletin board in a workplace break room
         | where people post whatever, whenever, and others passively
         | view, interact with, or discuss it as they see fit.
        
         | moritzwarhier wrote:
         | I actually like this, also in cases where users sometimes post
         | a submission that relates to some previous discussion, but does
         | not _require_ the context of said discussion but are
         | interesting on their own
        
         | paulddraper wrote:
         | Typically on HN people talk about whatever they want, no set
         | agenda.
        
         | moritzwarhier wrote:
         | I actually like this, also in cases where users sometimes post
         | a submission that relates to some previous discussion, but does
         | not _require_ the context of said discussion to be interesting.
        
         | eimrine wrote:
         | Internet was a heaven in 2007.
        
           | tannhaeuser wrote:
           | Then HTML5 and Google/Chrome devs taking over the Internet
           | happened.
        
         | calebegg wrote:
         | I don't disagree with you but I did find the linked article
         | very interesting to read absent any context.
        
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