Mia (web luddite)Feb 16

The narrative that #CSS was initially designed to be static, and only later became responsive with things like media, supports, container queries, and now if()… is maybe how things turned out?

But MQs were part of the original proposal – including document age queries, & user "relevance" queries.

This wasn't a big pivot in the vision of the language, but a more continuous project of realizing that vision in relation to changing author needs & browser capabilities over time.

Show threadJen SimmonsFeb 16
@mia When people claim the web was invented to present static documents, (a giant pile of Word files), and didn’t become interactive until “web apps” were “invented”… uh. My dude. The web was interactive from day 1. Hypertext reinvented human communication. Even things like mainstream film story structure were revolutionized by the web. It was NOT “dumb” documents until 2015. The web was never supposed to be just papers. Believing so reveals ignorance to historical reality — or a corrupt agenda.
Show threadJon Lunman

@jensimmons @mia Indeed, many folks forget (or weren't aware) that web apps existed long before javascript became ubiquitous. As far back as the mid-to-late 90s, we had fully web-based apps for email, live chat, online banking, stock trading, tax prep, mapping and directions, and enterprise apps of all sorts. (And they were usable even over slow dial-up internet connections.)

Fun fact, the original branding of Hotmail (pre-microsoft acquisition) emphasized the letters H T M L in their logo.

Feb 16 at 10:31pmWeb
Show threadddgFeb 17
@jlunman @jensimmons @mia How did live chat work without Javascript? I'm genuinely curious about what technologies could have enabled that before the 00s – I only began playing with web development when JS was a de facto requirement.
Show threadAleš RoubíčekFeb 17
@ddg @jlunman @jensimmons @mia Frames and <meta http-equiv="Refresh" content="10">
Show threadAleš RoubíčekFeb 17
@ddg @jlunman @jensimmons @mia later you can use HTTP/HTML streaming without auto refreshing
Show threadddgFeb 17

@alesroubicek @jlunman @jensimmons @mia I had completely forgotten how frames were different pages. Makes sense! And I guess the input field would be on a separate frame, so that the refresh wouldn't reset the user's typing.

Not as smooth, but more than good enough, for sure. Thank you!

Show threadCaspar C. MierauFeb 17
@ddg @jlunman @jensimmons @mia POST and refresh worked well enough. You had a delay of a couple of seconds, but it still felt instant.