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Comment by ary | Hacker News Reader

I stand by my comment. A few things to note.

  > Some people write crappy code in CFML.
  Yes. But people write crappy code in [your preferred language] too.

No, I said CFML code is universally hard to understand. Even more so for people already familiar with more popular languages.

  > OMG can you believe some people still use TABLES???
  view source.

That example was given to make a point about dated skill sets. I didn't imply that your Tumblr blog was table based.

Edit:

To InnocentB's point about HN's HTML. Does anyone here think HN's markup is meant at all to be inspirational? My take has always been that pg has priorities, and a layout for HN firmly based on cleaner HTML & CSS isn't high on that list.

View on HN

CFML is NOT universally hard to understand. I have been programming over 25 years, and use/have used all kinds of languages. CFML is just another tool.

If you don't like tag based language, you can use pure scripting in CFML pages. Also, nothing in CFML requires or even leads ANYONE to use table based layout. I don't know where you got that idea from.

When i first looked at CFML I had distaste for what i saw. The problem is, what i saw was other peoples bad code. Once i really dove in and started writing CFML myself, i found it is like any other language in that, you can write beautiful, clean, easy to understand and modify code.

CFML has a LOT of things built into it that make db backed web development VERY nice, including:

Db queries and transactions as a first class language member. Pdf generation, ftp access, email sending, graphing, ALL are first class language features, not to mention native use of java libraries.

Don't get me wrong, i see the value in frameworks like ROR. I just think CFML gets a bad rep when it does not deserve it.

CFML has great frameworks as well. One of many ... https://github.com/seancorfield/fw1/wiki

Sorry, you do not understand the meaning of "first class". You mean "included in the standard library". First class is as in first class functions, ie you can assign them to variables.

And for a second I was excited by first class transactions.

Yes, you are of course correct. I was using the term to mean "built in and part of the language"

Thanks for the correction!

PG has addressed the issue of HN's markup several times. One of the major advantages of CSS, that sitewide changes can be made in one place doesn't really apply to HN. All the HTML is generated by Arc code which is written in a reasonably DRY style; major changes can be made in a central place.

I like modern markup and layout better than the way things used to be just like almost everyone else, but It's hard to come up with an argument for switching HN to more modern markup. It wouldn't make the site easier for PG to maintain, and it probably wouldn't result in a change to the visual design unless a designer was brought in.

I think he's referring to Hacker News, which is table-based.

to be fair, HN has had the same design for years...

I read pud's comments as essentially the same thing: he has better things to worry about.

However. A lot of the leeway in technology choice you might have as a lone-wolf entrepreneur fly out the window once you grow beyond that. If you have no intention of growing beyond, go nuts. Use whatever makes you happy. If you do want to grow more, then be prepared for a rewrite.

Not if you're the guy cutting the checks.

I'm not sure what that's in response to.

Into: " If you do want to grow more, then be prepared for a rewrite." ... If you're the dude cutting the checks & you think it's well designed, you don't have to redesign just because your dev gets pissy.

Does anyone here think HN's markup is meant at all to be inspirational?

Yes, it's one of the most usable and beautiful sites on Internet.

Markup, not layout.

Whats so hard to understand the difference between <form> and <cfform>? Everything cold fusion related starts with a <cf... <cfif> If you don't like it, you can also use a <cfscript> tag:

<cfscript> if(noob) { greetings = "Hello Coldfusion N00b"; } </cfscript>

<cfoutput>#greetings#</cfoutput>

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