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posted by chromas on Thursday September 27 2018, @01:20PM   Printer-friendly
from the hope-we-don't-drain-the-battery dept.

Low-tech Magazine explains how to build a low-tech web site, using its own (solar powered) web site as an example. They cover both the web design and the actual hardware in use, an Olimex A20. The idea is to radically reduce the energy use associated with accessing the content, seeing as complex designs with Javascript have burdensome resource requirements that translate into increased use of electricity. Renewable power sources alone are not enough to address the growing energy use of the Internet. Their server is also self-hosted so there's no need for third-party tracking and cookies either.

Low-tech Magazine was born in 2007 and has seen minimal changes ever since. Because a website redesign was long overdue — and because we try to practice what we preach — we decided to build a low-tech, self-hosted, and solar-powered version of Low-tech Magazine. The new blog is designed to radically reduce the energy use associated with accessing our content.

Earlier on SN:
Conservative Web Development (2018)
About a Third of All Web Sites Run on WordPress (2018)
Please, Keep your Blog Light (2018)


Original Submission

 
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  • (Score: 5, Touché) by Pino P on Thursday September 27 2018, @04:27PM (6 children)

    by Pino P (4721) on Thursday September 27 2018, @04:27PM (#740848) Journal

    The <!DOCTYPE> is missing; that's for sure. With a DOCTYPE, I could tell what version of HTML this was supposed to be and thus whether <body> adds an implicit </head>.

    Starting Score:    1  point
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    Karma-Bonus Modifier   +1  

    Total Score:   5  
  • (Score: 4, Interesting) by acid andy on Thursday September 27 2018, @05:00PM (5 children)

    by acid andy (1683) on Thursday September 27 2018, @05:00PM (#740864) Homepage Journal

    OK, you're the real winner (Mr Wise Guy). I have to say though that I really dislike the HTML 5 tolerance for unclosed (or implicitly closed) tags. After the strictness of XHTML, it's like the web consortium just went "Ah, fuck it--no-one closes their tags properly anyway so let's just allow it in the spec!"

    --
    If a cat has kittens, does a rat have rittens, a bat bittens and a mat mittens?
    • (Score: 2) by requerdanos on Thursday September 27 2018, @06:48PM

      by requerdanos (5997) Subscriber Badge on Thursday September 27 2018, @06:48PM (#740947) Journal

      I really dislike the HTML 5 tolerance for unclosed (or implicitly closed) tags

      Be that as it may, your sample page above with no document type declaration is simpler than a page with a type declaration.

      As it will be rendered in the browser's "quirks mode", the body tag will close the head tag about 99.99999% of the time. Seven nines is pretty good here.

    • (Score: 2) by Pino P on Thursday September 27 2018, @06:49PM

      by Pino P (4721) on Thursday September 27 2018, @06:49PM (#740950) Journal

      HTML5 has an XHTML mode too, if that's what you prefer.

    • (Score: 2) by bzipitidoo on Thursday September 27 2018, @07:05PM (1 child)

      by bzipitidoo (4388) on Thursday September 27 2018, @07:05PM (#740957) Journal

      > I really dislike the HTML 5 tolerance for unclosed (or implicitly closed) tags.

      Why? Are you a COBOL programmer? Cutting down the verbosity so that fewer characters have to be transmitted makes it all go faster, and takes less energy.

      Or, if you prefer, we can lay out a proper, formal way to have all tags properly balanced, and still save on most of the excess verbiage. One way is to have a 3rd type of tag. We have < and </ for opening and closing tags, respectively. Add a 3rd kind of tag, an opening tag that closes when its containing tag closes. Denote it with this: <: Further, we all know one of the biggest, ugliest redundancies in HTML is spelling out the tag name twice. Did you know SGML (HTML's parent) has this "shorttag" construct, </> ? Then your example can be this:

      <html>
      <head>
      <:title>Efficient web pages are easy.
      </>
      <:body>
      Just keep it simple. And keep your organization free from pointy-haired bosses that want to add shinies and animations and pop-over ads.

      I think TFA's website uses JQuery. That's not very energy efficient for the client.
      </>

      The first </> closes title and head, and the second closes body and html.

      • (Score: 2) by acid andy on Thursday September 27 2018, @07:25PM

        by acid andy (1683) on Thursday September 27 2018, @07:25PM (#740982) Homepage Journal

        Why? Are you a COBOL programmer?

        No. Mainly C and C++. Gotta match up those brackets.

        Further, we all know one of the biggest, ugliest redundancies in HTML is spelling out the tag name twice.

        I agree in principle, so long as you have access to an editor that can expand and collapse the elements so you can easily match up the closing and opening tags when they are deeply nested. It's one reason people started using JSON to serialize data.

        --
        If a cat has kittens, does a rat have rittens, a bat bittens and a mat mittens?
    • (Score: 4, Touché) by Reziac on Friday September 28 2018, @04:20AM

      by Reziac (2489) on Friday September 28 2018, @04:20AM (#741198) Homepage

      "the HTML 5 tolerance for unclosed (or implicitly closed) tags."

      Wait, now we're emulating IE4 ??

      --
      And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.