McMaster Carr – The Smartest Website You Haven't Heard Of (2022) | Hacker News Reader

McMaster Carr – The Smartest Website You Haven't Heard Of (2022)

bedelstein.com

94 pointsjcartw54 comments

Previous and related:

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lol for real. weve heard about it quite a lot, actually - infact not a year goes by without someone rediscovering that html can load quite quickly if given the chance.

Back when this was making the rounds several years ago, I was intrigued that they request pages in the background on mouse-over, then swap on click. I decided to do similar on my blog, since my pages are about a dozen kb of HTML, and I aggressively cache things. My blog now feels super fast to navigate through, since I've eliminated a ton of network lag.

https://theandrewbailey.com/

wow it is really fast!

Built with asp.net and jQuery. Nowadays, it would probably be some React monstrosity that takes 30s to load and only shows one item per page (when did information density become evil?).

I think there's also some Yahoo UI in there too.

https://github.com/stratolark/NextMaster

I remember seeing this last time the McMaster site went around and it's great. It's wild to me though that ignorant reflexive copy-paste lashes against React like this thread OP are so common that there was value to putting this together.

I've been doing more and more web dev with JQuery recently. I learned it in high school and I think most of the new JS frameworks are probably worse.

jQuery is more of a DOM API wrapper than any modern framework, they serve entirely different needs.

I'm generally annoyed whe

The UX wizards ensure your phone and 32-inch show upto 6 products so customers dont face too much info. A goal-oriented (vs browsing) app wont have whitespace or infinite scroll.

Note they have CAD files for almost all of their products which - in combination with a 3D printer - can come in very handy.

And they download directly as files, not wrapped in a zip that you have to mess around with before you can put the actual file you need where you want it.

That makes me wonder if "files" is a space that needs (in startup-talk) "distruption": what about a utility that applies rules to files, e.g. if you save a file in the directory unzip-me, it'll be unzipped. Or categorize files, e.g. "this email attachment is related to project A, this download is related to project B", and the utility will take care of them, e.g. by putting them in the correct directories?

Since this is HN it can't be a homebrew open-source solution, it'll have to be AI-enhanced and cost 25.99 a month. Who wants to fund me?

This sort of thing has existed for a while, but it's not picked up in the mainstream for two main reasons (at least based on my anecdotal evidence).

1. The friction between a zipped file and an unzipped file isn't enough to make the majority of users take the time to build out an automation. This is especially true now that in Windows you can open a zip file by double-clicking it, peruse the files, and open them from within the zip into your temp storage. 2. It's a little bit of a security risk. Downloaders are (generally) less vulnerable to side channel attacks, but the unzip software people usually use (7-zip, Window's native utilize, WinRAR) are slightly more vulnerable. This risk goes up with any automation software as a) you aren't auditing what you're actually unzipping, and b) the automation can be compromised.

But if you want to try this out, just search for "auto unzip" software and you'll find plenty of tools. You could also set up a cronjob on your Linux machine to run every so often and just scan a folder for zip files and unzip them automatically, with the option to trigger via alias'd command.

This makes great business sense, since you can fit-test any part and know you're getting the right one before ordering.

IIRC, there's even plugins for some CAD programs to grab models by part number.

Yes, that's exactly how I use it. I've also had use cases where I needed something now and didn't mind a plastic part for actual use because I knew the load would be light.

Fusion 360 integrates this, letting you include their products in your designs/assemblies.

I was there, Gandalf, thirty years ago when they formed their first website...

Which was little more than scans of their catalog pages, and some fields. Really. Instead of getting all excited about the latest web tech, they took their gigantic catalog and more-or-less scanned it in (well, used source files, but still...).

McMaster-Carr has always been an amazing company. I was once in the field, and ordered a $5,000 part from a key supplier and a $30 box of screws from McMaster-Carr. The other supplier charged extra for shipping, and sent it two days later to my company instead of my location as specified. McMaster-Carr overnighted the screws without being asked to do so.

And if you are in the area (western Chicago suburbs), you can get it by 1p the same day.

i'm old enough to have a few of the old McMaster-Carr yellow/green books on a shelf which came before the CD-Rom catalog which got disappeared by the website.

I wonder if the source images were from the cd-rom?

I don't doubt. I can't recall for sure if their first website had selectable text, or just images. I tend to think it was images.

My father is a metalworker and I grew up with stacks of their encyclopedias all over my house. Was always amazed the sheer amount of stuff in them, probably saved a few trees with their website.

I've been a big fan of theirs for a long time. I used to sit and browse their huge printed catalog in my spare time just to discover more parts to consider for use in my builds.

It wrecks the back button and they cannot be bothered to optimize for mobile in the slightest. And I'm not exactly asking for some janky "fake mobile app" here, how about some basic CSS breakpoints.

Any member of the anti-modern-web-stack crowd that elevates McMaster as its shining example of how it ought to be, is about as "smart" as the site.

What's wrong with the back button there? It seems to be working fine.

https://www.barnstormers.com/

Wana buy a bolt?(aircraft), or a fighter jet?

It's been stable since the internet.

It needs a few scripts for total functionality, but you can look at everything on site with just plain html, and it's fast.Internal search is good.And random external searches for aircraft stuff will land you there.

On my browser the screen jumps around while vertically scrolling on the McMaster homepage. It's not all rainbows and sunshine.

yeah, must be McMaster and not you.

Yeah, must be me only seeing it on there and not thousands of other websites, using a pretty standard browser and platform.

Stop telling me what I have or haven’t heard. There’s no better way to irritate someone right off the bat.

Stop telling people what will or won't irritate others right off the bat. There's no better way to wrongly speak for someone else. :)

More seriously, it's probably a good bet that most people haven't heard of McMaster Carr in general, and if they have, probably not in the context of having a smart or well designed website. So it's not a terrible article headline. And of all the click bait style headlines that could be used, it's probably the least offensive. At least they give you the name in the headline.

McMaster Carr is probably the most famous industrial supplier in North America. It's a $1.3 billion company that's been in business for over a century. Anyone who makes physical stuff probably goes on their website multiple times per day. I currently have 17 different McMaster tabs open.

It's fine if your personal experience has never lead you to encounter this site, and it's fine to remark on your unique perspective as someone observing it not as a user but as an admirer. But the presumption that others share your ignorance is at best impolite, and the suggestion that some may be irritated should be taken as useful criticism, because plenty are.

Even if “anyone who makes physical stuff” has heard of them, manufacturing jobs represent 12.8 million jobs[1] compared to 158 million non-farm jobs[2]. That’s 8% of the workforce. Let’s double that to account for people that used to work in manufacturing or are in maker hobbies and the like. Even at 16% I would comfortably stand by the assertion that most people have not heard about McMaster Carr’s website being a very high functioning web site.

[1]: https://www.statista.com/chart/34316/share-of-manufacturing-...

[2]: https://falconproducts.co.in/us-manufacturing-workforce-perc...

Well by that logic, there are 4.4 million software developers, much less than half the employment of manufacturing, in the US. Should we introduce stack overflow as a website you've never heard of? I'm sure plenty of people haven't heard of it, but I wouldn't assume any particular person hasn't.

> Should we introduce stack overflow as a website you've never heard of?

Yes? Obviously who you're writing for matters. I wouldn't write an article specifically targeted at and submitted to software developers and use that for a title, but I would absolutely have no problem at all introducing Stack Overflow as a site you haven't heard of (or maybe I'd qualify it as "probably haven't heard of) if writing something for a general audience. It's a safe bet that most people you talk to wouldn't have heard of Stack Overflow, so there's nothing wrong with a headline for a broad audience that assumes that.

Would you object to a headline for an article written for a general audience that calls "lwn.net" a site you haven't heard of? Or maybe an article that calls Admiral Grace Hopper a computer pioneer you haven't heard of? Sure everyone on this site almost certainly has heard of them. But in the general public?

i live in the area and this place is one of the most toxic workplaces to have ever existed.

Details?

i know glassdoor isn't the best review site but in this case its bang on

https://www.glassdoor.com/Reviews/McMaster-Carr-Reviews-E372...

i know several friends and family who cycled through here ( non tech) . they pay relatively higher salaries for chicago burbs area, so lot of ppl take their chances despite the bad reputation around here.

Thanks.

You need to enable JavaScript.

Imagine an alternate universe where Amazon has a similar interface. It would be the most amazing tool.

Germans have https://geizhals.de

Except for the annoying cookie popup. If only we had a simple browser setting/header that could answer this question without another click. Hmm

We do! It recognises the 'Do Not Track' sent, at least on FF for me. I get a very small popup telling me it's respecting this setting, and no request for accepting anything else:

> "Do not Track"-Modus erkannt! Es werden nur technisch notwendige Cookies verwended. [Datenschutzerkl"arung](...)

Lovely. If only the rest of the web looked like this.

Having used both extensively, Geizhals doesn't hold a candle to McMaster. McMaster is, bar none, the single best e commerce website I've ever used (if you already know what you're looking for, and definitely still top shelf if you don't).

But McMaster and eg Amazon are optimizing for different things. McMaster knows its clientele isn't going shopping, they're solving problems. As such, McMaster focuses on helping your solve your problem and get back to work. Amazon, on the other hand, is focused on just selling you "as much 'anything' as possible" and wants you to spend as much time there as possible in the hopes that you'll stumble on an impulse buy.

https://www.digitec.ch/en Digitec/Galaxus (Switzerland’s online shopping site) is FANTASTIC

[2022]

love metalwork & buy parts but seriously; F@##% anyone that messes with my navigation back.

So true... I immediately close the page and move on.

Absolutely! I now won't enter the site because they kill the back button.

What are you talking about? I tried snaking through the MC site; back button worked just fine.

try backing out of the site

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