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Comment by pg | Hacker News Reader

Because we're smart enough to realize that html is object code?

For all I know, my macroexpansions are ugly too. The whole point is that I don't have to look at them.

HTML is object code only because you don't have a dedicated designer who wants to make design decisions and changes without requiring the programmer's time. For news.yc that's fine, but for many business sites, having HTML automatically generated in a designer-opaque manner is inconvenient. Eventually you want to hand off the design to someone who is good at design, and having to find someone good at design and good at the programming language you use limits the pool of designers.

The usual alternative to html-as-object-code is to use a template system, but template systems seem to move as a group (and individually during development) toward being a way to write your usual language, but surrounded by HTML, which has the same problems I outline above, since the designer still has to mess with what's really application code. I suppose this is because template systems are usually designed by programmers, for programmers.

I think you missed the part where he doesn't give a shit.

You may notice if you look around that much of the time when someone replies to someone else (in any context, not specifically news.yc) they are saying something they wanted to say or like saying, rather than expecting to change someone's mind.

In fact, there are many, many exceptions to my general rule that you'd want to eventually turn over HTML/CSS/design stuff to a designer, and news.yc is one, probably. But the vast majority of my projects are no exception, and I'm fortunate to be married to a designer with strong opinions on the matter, so I get good feedback. :)

Why don't you just say that "applications are hard, particularly those with a UI"? ;-)

Heh. Actually, for most things I've been involved with, UI has been more difficult than any of the rest of it.

One of the promises of the web was that interface could be cleanly separated from the application itself, and it seems to me that most approaches being used today throw away that promise because the programmers assume that UI and design aren't important, or aren't hard.

So yeah, HTML is object code to PG because it can be. Sure, separating programming from web design may be necessary, but it's not better. Having the two concerns properly considered together is better, though more difficult to pull off.

I like to write clean and readable code when I program, so I also try to do the same with the HTML output. It's a matter of "pride".

Another thing, is that you could reduce the HTML code a bit by using CSS more. The following example shows a <font>-tag inside a span...

One might also wonder why the vote URL contains the username? The cookie identifies the user so the url can either match that, in which case the vote is recorded, or not, in which case it returns "user error."

But I do note the board does work well: is always up, does what it's supposed to, is easy to use, seems secure, and thus it just doesn't matter.

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