Top all-time · #3562
Wordyard
Personal blog · wordyard.comwebculture
Wordyard is a personal blog at wordyard.com about web and culture. Since 2007, 22 different Hacker News readers have linked it 41 times. It is still writing: the last post was on 2026-07-24, and you can follow it by feed.
Too few sampled comments (4) to say how often HN recommends it.?
Why HN links it
HN readers link Wordyard for essays on programming languages, software architecture, content management and early computing, including a 1994 Myst press release. Comments cite its pages as sources or recommend them.
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.
Hand-forged posts since 2002
What Hacker News says?
I think a reference to Guy Steele's essay 'Building a Language' is appropriate here: http://www.cs.virginia.edu/~evans/cs655/readings/steele.pdf In a commentary on the essay, Scott Rosenberg says: Plainly, Steele started out intending to show just how painful the words-of-one-syllable limit is — and, by extension, how desperately programmers need the ability to expand the vocabularies of languages that feel impoveri…
Comment linking /2007/06/12/steele-growing/
on “We need less powerful languages”Submitted Why didn't I start a company in my dorm room and pocket millions before I turned 30? as a story · 20 points
HN discussionMarc Canter [1] [2] once pointed out to me in an accidental moment of candor that a Director timeline was just a BASIC program turned 90 degrees counter clockwise, so the line numbers increase from left to right. [1] http://www.wordyard.com/dmz/canter.html [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marc_Canter
Comment linking /dmz/canter.html
on “The spreadsheet as a minimum viable CMS”Submitted There aren't 450,000 full-time paid bloggers as a story · 10 points
HN discussionThis is a good, readable paper, with clever pictures to illustrate the points. Many of the ideas in it are well known (especially if you are already familiar with XP). I like the fact that the authors recognize that the BIG BALL OF MUD architecture is successful (in the sense that many working systems have this architecture – or rather lack of architecture). In the paper, they describe the BIG BALL OF MUD architectu…
Comment linking /2007/08/07/next-up-in-code-reads-big-ball-of-mud/
on “Big Ball of Mud”Submitted Lou Reed played a Web 2.0 conference in 2006. It didn't go so well. as a story · 6 points
HN discussionLong live Hypercard. My first exposure (Macintosh SE) Check out this unique yet subversive 1994 press release from Rand and Robyn Miller: http://www.wordyard.com/dmz/mail.html
Comment linking /dmz/mail.html
on “Sept. 24, 1993: Beautiful ‘Myst’ Ushers In Era of CD-ROM Gaming”Submitted Scott Rosenberg: Chandler 1.0 ships as a story · 5 points
HN discussionSubmitted For the media biz, iPad 2010 = CDROM 1994 as a story · 4 points
HN discussionSubmitted Google Blog Search loses its bearings as a story · 4 points
HN discussionSubmitted Sarah Lacy’s Once You’re Lucky: Money doesn’t change everything as a story · 4 points
HN discussionSubmitted Steve Ballmer: Microsoft's incompetent youth as a story · 4 points
HN discussionSubmitted "Your map’s wrong": Zuckerberg lights out for the territories as a story · 3 points
HN discussionSubmitted Why trust Facebook with the future’s past? as a story · 3 points
HN discussionSubmitted Does the Web remember too much — or too little? as a story · 3 points
HN discussionSubmitted Y Combinator’s Request for Startups in Journalism as a story · 3 points
HN discussionSubmitted Once more into the pay-wall breach: No gravedancing edition as a story · 3 points
HN discussionSubmitted Needed: A Tool To Help You Pay Attention to What You Are Paying Attention To as a story · 3 points
HN discussionSubmitted Scott Rosenberg: Web 2.0's five-year development cycle as a story · 3 points
HN discussionSubmitted You think they’re your favorites, but they belong to Twitter as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted Lies our bubbles taught us as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted Memo to Steve: We already are a nation of bloggers as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted How charging for articles could hobble the future of journalism as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted Premature spotlight on Spot.us as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted Schmidt on scaling Google as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted The hive mind migrates as a story · 1 points
HN discussionSubmitted Wordyard Project nuts and bolts: what I’ll do and how I’ll support it as a story · 1 points
HN discussionSubmitted When you want to switch platforms and “redesign” too? Don’t as a story · 1 points
HN discussionSubmitted Another misleading story reports that blogs ‘r’ dead as a story · 1 points
HN discussionSubmitted Don’t delete that tweet? The debate rages as a story · 1 points
HN discussion
