Top all-time · #3082
Alex Petros
Personal blog · unplannedobsolescence.com/blogprogrammingweb
Alex Petros writes Unplanned Obsolescence, a personal blog at unplannedobsolescence.com about programming and web. Since 2023, 25 different Hacker News readers have linked it 38 times, most often “Who's Afraid of a Hard Page Load?”. It is still writing: the last post was on 2026-08-08, and you can follow it by feed.
Too few sampled comments (9) to say how often HN recommends it.?
Why HN links it
HN readers link Alex Petros for essays on htmx, HTML attributes, hypertext APIs and dynamic typing, often as support in htmx debates.
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 9 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
A blog by Alex Petros about trying to write software that doesn't rot
Most-linked posts?
- Who's Afraid of a Hard Page Load?5 people · 6 mentions · first linked 2024-07-16
- Less Htmx Is More4 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2024-10-03
- Behavior Belongs in the HTML4 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2023-12-11
- The Server Doesn't Render Anything4 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2025-06-17
- What Dynamic Typing Is For3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2025-10-13
- Prolog Basics Explained with Pokémon2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2026-05-15
- Why Insist on a Word2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2025-02-05
- Custom HTML Has Levels to It2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2024-01-08
- "Hello World" in Web Development2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2024-03-02
- Building the Hundred-Year Web Service (2024)2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2024-10-18
What Hacker News says?
> why use HTMX when it really seems like (a heavier) Datastar-lite? The reason to use htmx is that it has a simpler interface optimized for the majority use-case. With htmx, you are largely tied to a request/reply paradigm. Something happens that triggers a request (e.g. user clicks a button, or some element scrolls into view), htmx sends the request, and then it processes the response. The htmx interface (`hx-get`,…
Comment linking /blog/less-htmx-is-more/
on “</> Htmx – The Fetch()ening”Submitted Less Htmx Is More as a story · 169 points
HN discussionThis is correct, but... logic belongs in attribute strings! Even in basic HTML, it can change what kind of HTTP request your <form> makes, or what kind of value your <input> sends, or where your <a> link goes. Without question, there's a low er expressivity ceiling to attribute-based specifications, but there is a lot that you can do within that ceiling, and you benefit in other ways by keeping your application at t…
Comment linking /blog/custom-html-has-levels/
on “Is htmx Just Another JavaScript Framework?”Submitted What Dynamic Typing Is For as a story · 92 points
HN discussionIn many cases, browsers will also automatically perform a "smooth" transition between pages if your caching settings are don well, as described above. It's called paint holding. [0] One of the driving ideas behind Triptych is that, while HTML is insufficient in a couple key ways, it's a way better foundation for your website than JavaScript, and it gets better without any effort from you all the time. In the long ru…
Comment linking /blog/hard-page-load/
on “Triptych Proposals”Submitted The Life and Death of Htmx as a story · 34 points
HN discussion> Purists have long claimed that a “truly” RESTful API should be fully self-describing, such that a client can explore and interact with it knowing nothing but an entrypoint in advance, with hyperlinks providing all necessary context to discover and consume additional endpoints. > This never worked in practice. Building hypertext APIs was too cumbersome and to actually consume APIs a human needed to understand the A…
Comment linking /blog/why-insist-on-a-word/
on “Context engineering is sleeping on the humble hyperlink”Submitted Less Htmx Is More as a story · 19 points
HN discussionAs you can see even the basic documentation is compromised at this point: https://unplannedobsolescence.com/blog/behavior-belongs-in-h... <button onclick="alert('I was clicked!')">Click me</button> ,,You can find HTML attribute equivalents for many of the event handler properties; however, you shouldn't use these — they are considered bad practice. It might seem easy to use an event handler attribute if you are doin…
Comment linking /blog/behavior-belongs-in-html/
on “Less Htmx Is More”Submitted The Difference Between a Button and a Link as a story · 14 points
HN discussion> “You didn’t solve anything! Doing validation is complex and you just magic wanded it away by designing a perfect interface for it.” Yes. Exactly. That is what interfaces are supposed to do. Better semantics make it possible for the programmer to describe what the element does, and for someone else to take care of the details for them. Gosh I couldn't agree more, what a wonderfully succinct way to communicate what…
Comment linking /blog/behavior-belongs-in-html/
on “Less Htmx Is More”Submitted What Dynamic Typing Is For as a story · 13 points
HN discussionHow do you get flicker free navigation using htmx without using hx-swap or boost? I see that this article refers to https://unplannedobsolescence.com which has a header that remains the same, but it also doesn't change. Normally a header will do some type of change, e.g. showing which menu item is currently selected. That's when the flickering starts, in my experience.
Comment linking /
on “Less Htmx Is More”Submitted Who's Afraid of a Hard Page Load? as a story · 11 points
HN discussionVery much enjoyed the article, it aligns with a lot of my own thoughts on coding :P. nitpick - in the Rust example it seems the events are not passed into rendering the events.html template. https://unplannedobsolescence.com/blog/what-dynamic-typing-i...
Comment linking /blog/what-dynamic-typing-is-for/
on “What Dynamic Typing Is For”Submitted The Server Doesn't Render Anything as a story · 11 points
HN discussionThank you a lot for your interest! Yes of course: As I see it, Prolog is often awesome in types of applications that are distinct from those one would usually build in other kinds of languages. Alex Petros phrased it extremely nicely and insightfully in his comment at https://lobste.rs/s/0cvxwk/prolog_basics_explained_with_poke... : "I don't know if this will be a satisfying answer to your question, but since writin…
Comment linking /blog/prolog-basics-pokemon/
on “Sula: A Gemini protocol server written in Scryer Prolog”Submitted Building the Hundred-Year Web Service (2024) as a story · 5 points
HN discussionSubmitted Behavior Belongs in the HTML as a story · 5 points
HN discussionSubmitted The Server Doesn't Render Anything as a story · 4 points
HN discussionSubmitted Who's afraid of a hard page load? as a story · 4 points
HN discussionSubmitted Who's Afraid of a Hard Page Load? as a story · 4 points
HN discussionSubmitted Building the Hundred-Year Web Service as a story · 4 points
HN discussionSubmitted What Dynamic Typing Is For as a story · 3 points
HN discussionSubmitted The web server doesn't render anything as a story · 3 points
HN discussionSubmitted The Server Doesn't Render Anything as a story · 3 points
HN discussionSubmitted Who's Afraid of a Hard Page Load? as a story · 3 points
HN discussionSubmitted Getting Off the Modernization Treadmill as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted XML Is a Cheap DSL as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted "Hello World" in Web Development as a story · 2 points
HN discussion
