Simplicity

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Albert Wiersch
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Simplicity

Post by Albert Wiersch »

A good article that I recently came across:
https://bastianallgeier.com/notes/simplicity-part-2

My take

I have tried to keep the CSS HTML Validator website simple. It has worked rather well for many years now with only relatively minor changes and updates. It might look old-fashioned, but it works and is very functional. Not only does it work, it loads very quickly and renders very quickly and with a minimum of problems... at least I've always thought so.

If I were to update the site then I'd probably have to use some modern solution that would vastly complicate things, make it slower to load, less functional, and open it up to more potential security vulnerabilities. Plus it would probably need more maintenance and be more prone to breaking in the future.

I think a similar analogy is the smartphone. These devices are suppose to make life easier, but now every place you shop at and restaurant you eat at seems to have an app, and if you don't have that app then you're missing something like a discount or points or whatever... so you install the app and then you usually need to create a new account, verify it, and manage it. You have to learn how it works. When things work right then it's usually not too bad but it still takes extra time to deal with the app and learn how to use it effectively. When you run into a problem or bug then it can very time consuming and frustrating... and bugs are not that uncommon (I won't write about all those issues here). I've had to dispute two credit card charges so far when using a restaurant's app didn't work right and caused me to be double-charged. Another time I placed an order and when I arrived at the restaurant and they had no record of it even though the app said I had bought and paid for the order.

And then there are those poorly designed apps that lack important and useful features (like only being able to enter and use one gift card or not being able to use a gift card to pay for only part of an order instead). Anyway, sometimes I long for the simplicity of "old days" when you didn't have to spend time using an app for everyplace you shop at. Oh, and I didn't even mention the privacy concerns. I've pretty much given up and privacy because a lack of privacy seems to be one of the prices you pay to live in the modern world.

Anyway, feel free to share your thoughts.
Albert Wiersch, CSS HTML Validator Developer • Download CSS HTML Validator FREE Trial
gmgj
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Re: Simplicity

Post by gmgj »

From my perspective there are a number of important considerations to evaluate before you do anything. Is your stuff working and secure? Is there exposure that malicious agents can exploit? Hard to evaluate, but, I use the simple, if you have public(web) content, stay at the current release of the OS and major components. If not, update. Lots of hard core system admins might say no need to update, it could break your stuff. I say, that does not cut it anymore. If you run software with known exposures, with remote exploit capability, I do not think you are acting as a responsible developer.

Other than that, who is the target market for your software. if your appealing to the crowd that stands in line for the new iPhone, you have a different set of criteria than if your selling tools. As I look at your site, it is easy to navigate for me. It is compact, information intensive. I like that

I just updated a site that the core stack had not been touched in over 10 years. The update process did not work, I had to migrate to a new stack. It was not difficult. We had Rackspace create a new machine, restored the old site and fixed, as required That new site is set for auto updates, daily backups and images. It is monitored, if it dies, we go back to the last image and fix as necessary.

Full disclosure, wifey and I use inexpensive Android phones and use Google Fi. We pay less than $60 a month for service. We have Waze, Google Maps, a phone, ok google(like Siri), Lyft, Uber, Flush, Scanners, recorders, a pretty good set of cameras, alarms, video chat, airline apps etc. I want for nothing.
Kilo_SSK
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Re: Simplicity

Post by Kilo_SSK »

Yes, I'm afraid that the lack of privacy is something that we all must get used to, because unless we go live on a mountain and live off a herd of goats, we'll have to own a smartphone even if it's just for work, use the Internet to search for anything we might need, use our computers to find something for our hobbies (movies, games, booking stadium or concert places...), and all of this data belongs to companies who WILL, at some point, sell it to anyone who pays the price.
Regarding restaurants, hotels etc having apps, I don't really use that, as paying an extra 5% beats having to download ten billion apps I'll only use twice in my life (especially due to my job: I'm always abroad, discussing medical coverage for a client in a foreign hospital, estimating insurance costs on things like flats in Berlin, negotiating a partnership deal with a local insurer...) and I can't really download the apps of every single hotel or car rental company of every city I am sent to!
But to come back to the topic of CSS HTML Validator, I'm all for keeping it simple, it's really something I appreciate and that I don't really want to lose.

If I were to make a comparison, I'd compare it to cars: I'd rather have a car with analogic speed, fuel etc indicators that are not 100% accurate, but that I can fix myself, instead of having, like today, a car with an integrated computer that provides me with an automatic radio frequency search and a fancy LCD screen display, but that I have to bring to the brand's dedicated garage every time something's wrong with it... Sure, it looks more modern, but too much for me to understand, while I do want to understand what I use.
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