Reclaiming the Web with simplicity and hackability

Sterling Hughes is right. The Web is becoming too complicated for its own good. I have a long list of new technologies I have to learn if I’m going to understand how to build “modern” web pages.

One big reason for the triumph of the Web is that it was so easy to build sites with HTML. New standards and theoretical purity are beginning to stand in opposition to the beauty and simplicity of “good enough”. The good news is that “good enough” usually wins in the end.

Sterling’s post inspired Jeremy Zawodny’s praise of Moveable Type for its simplicity and hackability. It’s difficult to think of a single piece of software that is as loved as MT. Certainly there are no other content management systems are as loved by their users.

I love CSS because it has simplified my site design, markup, and therefore maintenance immeasurably and has inspired me to play around with site design and structure. I felt the same way about tables for a month, but eventually changing table-based designs made my head hurt.

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