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From: John Ames <commodorejohn@gmail.com>
Newsgroups: comp.os.linux.misc
Subject: Re: The Web (HTML) Sux
Date: Tue, 23 Dec 2025 14:19:50 -0800
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On Tue, 23 Dec 2025 21:45:34 -0000 (UTC)
Lawrence D=E2=80=99Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> wrote:

> > *A.* that's not what a straw-man argument is ...
> > ... Obviously, having trouble with a misbehaving website is a
> > smaller thing than burning to death in a badly-renovated apartment
> > building. =20
>=20
> You say no, and then you say yes.

A straw-man argument is, to quote Wikipedia, "the informal fallacy of
refuting an argument different from the one actually under discussion,
while not recognizing or acknowledging the distinction." Shoddy work-
manship (in apartment renovation) is a *smaller* thing than shoddy
workmanship (in web design,) but not, fundamentally, a *different* one.

> See, conflating opinions on aesthetics with issues of =E2=80=9Cworkmanshi=
p=E2=80=9D
> (quality of product) is another strawman.

Both aesthetics and functionality have been points of discussion in
this thread; I've been focusing primarily on the latter, though I do
maintain that bad design patterns employed in pursuit of aesthetics
often have functional impacts as well.

F'rexample, there are major websites where key layout and navigation
buttons are positioned off-screen depending on your resolution - not
even on, like, an ancient 640x480 display, but on *anything* smaller
than 1920x1080. That kind of design philosophy should've died with the
<BLINK> tag and "best viewed with XYZ" buttons.

(Of course, the "best viewed with XYZ" attitude itself is alive and
well today, in the form of sites that redirect all user agents outside
of the Approved Browser List to a FOAD-you-heathen page...)