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Rarst.net
Personal blog · rarst.netprogrammingwebwriting
Rarst.net is a personal blog at rarst.net about programming, web and writing. Since 2017, 6 different Hacker News readers have linked it 8 times, most often “WordPress crusade against technical responsibility (2016)”. The last post was in 2022, but the archive is still widely read.
Too few sampled comments (4) to say how often HN recommends it.?
Why HN links it
HN readers link Rarst.net for retro software write-ups, such as the Powertoy Calculator and Asus Express Gate pages, and for commentary on Gmail's design and on WordPress and PHP compatibility.
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 4 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
cynical thoughts on software and web
Most-linked posts?
- WordPress crusade against technical responsibility (2016)2 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2017-01-11
What Hacker News says?
Currently a big fan of https://clcalc.net/ . I went through calculator withdrawal after I left Windows XP and the great (for its time) Powertoy Calculator at https://www.rarst.net/software/powertoy-calculator/ . I wanted to like speedcrunch but I abandoned it, because I've found that it takes longer to load (4-5 seconds or more) than I need to have it open (1-2 seconds).
Comment linking /software/powertoy-calculator/
on “2-in-1 calculator app adds up to surprise hit for retired engineer”Submitted Reasons you should use plain text to save your data as a story · 1 points
HN discussionIf this is not addressed at a _very_ early state of a software, it will stick, because people get used to it and you drive people away by backwards-incompatible changes. Especially if it's a software that's targeting people who wants things easy & fast, like Mongo did at the beginning. See reasons[1] for WordPress needing to be PHP 5.2 compatible, which had been out of support for 6 years. [1]: https://www.rarst.net…
Comment linking /wordpress/technical-responsibility/
on “The MongoDB hack and the importance of secure defaults”Submitted WordPress crusade against technical responsibility (2016) as a story · 1 points
HN discussionEmail was meant to be kept simple, and Google is making this exponentially hard with every single "design" iteration. Get off Gmail - it'll break your email. The article has very good points, especially when it touches the issue of "hidden" mail, like the promotions tab: there are labels and tabs. There should be only one system, and no, don't hide things from the user at this level. When there's 17k mails in promot…
Comment linking /wordpress/technical-responsibility/
on “What happened, Gmail?”Submitted WordPress crusade against technical responsibility as a story · 1 points
HN discussionAsus used to ship it on their laptops, https://www.rarst.net/software/asus-express-gate/
Comment linking /software/asus-express-gate/
on “Windows 3.1 Flash Edition”Submitted Quantifying WordPress developer experience as a story · 1 points
HN discussion