Hi! I'm the post author. Desktop is dead in the way TV and newspapers are dead. Yes, they're still around but there's no growth. They certainly shouldn't be the main focus for a web developer building a personal site from scratch.
Part of why "desktop is dead" is a big meme in the valley comes from the fact that the valley is dominated by big-money venture capital. To VC, anything not growing at double digit rates simply does not exist.
BTW... I do wonder if we'll see another leg of desktop growth at some point in the future as the developing world becomes more developed and starts wanting to do more of the things people do on desktops...? We might indeed be in an era when "mobile first" describes the order of computing device adoption by a culture.
How well does the "mobile-first" solution work on a Nokia N95 browser? (let's not forget that not everyone visiting a webapp is doing so from latest version of Chrome, FF, Safari, Opera, etc.).
While I understand your concern, it feels misplaced given the context (Rails Rumble). Of course. Unless it is a front-end heavy hackathon, it is only natural that the business problem being solved has more weight that whether or not the site is functional on mobile.
I do agree with the general sentiment that we should consider mobile. But desktop isn't dead. (I assume you probably didn't write your submission on your phone).
You mean it would have large, clear text, with links that are easy to click because they're not this >< close to the link next to them? Perish the thought!