Post #275041

2026-02-12 08:18 UTC

The early Web had a quality that has been lost ever since: it was *simple* Download #httpd , #netscape write some #html by hand and boom, the concept of a networked digital society is born. It first started going pear shaped with #LAMP . The complexity of a full blown database was not justified for most use cases. As proven decades later by the popularity of #sqlite and #ssg approaches. The final blow was when #bigtech got into the act. Immense complexity for the simplest things became a moat

Replies (9)

@openrisk@mastodon.social 2026-02-12 08:41

The journey of #javascript is the poster child of out of control #complexity. What started as tiny client side code to introduce some interactivity has eaten html itself (virtual #dom) and then metastasized also on the server side. A gargantuan duplication of functionality between client and server that eventually backlashed into the #htmx and #livewire type approaches. When you throw in the explosion of mobile clients (with architectures controlled by a duopoly) you get to the lunacy of today.

Open ##1530330
@dequbed@mastodon.chaosfield.at 2026-02-12 10:05

@openrisk SQLite is just as much a “full blown” database as MySQL is, and infinitely less suited for the kinds of access patters typical of websites. And claiming the LAMP stack somehow stops you from writing mostly static websites is, frankly, ludicrous. Please stop blaming advancing /technology/ for bad /management/ decisions.

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@z428eu@quietmoon.org 2026-02-12 10:39

@openrisk Unfortunately too this original stack was quite exclusive, as it required a substantial amount of knowledge and resources for people to be part of that digital community. And so far we failed to keep these tools simple /and/ accessible to maybe even just that socially isolated neighbour who just owns an old Android smartphone and never even remotely heard about HTTP or LAMP. It's these users, humans that adopted big tech solutions because little of the non-big-tech tools works for them. And even to date, even taking a trivial protocol like Gemini, it's all the same again: Consumption is easy. Publishing is by far more difficult. Not even talking about communication, linking, ... .

Open ##1530334
@marshalla99@thx.gg 2026-02-12 11:07

@openrisk The killer blow was when form became more important than function (design overrides engineering). I'd argue that the absence of an "include" tag in HTML underlies a lot of it - much of the rot is caused by techniques to overcome the absence of maintainable modularity in the original HTML itself.

Open ##1530338
@mro@digitalcourage.social 2026-02-12 20:56

Hi @openrisk, as long as people do slides like (my) https://mro.name/vhs, it's not lost. I do my best. #permacomputing #web

Open ##1530339
@aral@mastodon.ar.al 2026-02-13 08:37

@openrisk This is why I bit the bullet and started on Kitten instead of just building a peer-to-peer social web app and some means of deploying it… if we want a different web, we’re going to have to simplify the stack (at least those parts that are feasible to). https://kitten.small-web.org #SmallWeb

Open ##1530340
@omz13@mastodon.social 2026-02-13 12:34

@openrisk The web went pear shaped when CSS moved away from simple tweaks to the default colors and sizes to become the behemoth that it is. The superficial style over substance, with JavaScript to juice things further, and it’s been downhill ever since.

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@regis@social.minutebutterfly.com 2026-02-14 07:34

@openrisk I agree, but what alternative do you suggest?

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@fleshin@fosstodon.org 2026-02-16 00:03

@openrisk HTML is one of the things lost in complexity. It grew in so many complex way but we still to relay on 3rd party libraries such as #HTMX for simple things such as delete #HTTP method calling

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