I’m So Old: Web Edition
Time can be a funny thing. I still remember discovering HTML, CSS, and JavaScript coding. I still remember my first college programming course. I still remember my first day at my first coding job, then my first day at my second coding job, and then my first day at Mozilla. I still remember my first […]
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I’m So Old: Web Edition
David Walsh on
March 18, 2024
- 40
Time can be a funny thing. I still remember discovering HTML, CSS, and JavaScript coding. I still remember my first college programming course. I still remember my first day at my first coding job, then my first day at my second coding job, and then my first day at Mozilla. I still remember my first day coding for MetaMask. This year marks my 20th year as a professional software engineer and it's happened in the blink of an eye.
Every once in a while I will make an old programming reference to a much younger engineer and then realize they have no idea what I'm talking about.
I'm so old...
- Webpage layouts were being done with <table>s and this new "CSS float" property was becoming the new standard
- Rounded corners were achieved via images and VML hacks for Internet Explorer
- FTP was the best way to upload websites changes
- SVN and copying its trunk was the best versioning tool
- alert and confirm were the standard for "modals"
- Firebug was the best debugging tool available
- The "standard" for getting videos to play properly was finding the right codec to install
- ActionScript knowledge was as valuable as JavaScript knowledge
- Dreamweaver was best in class text editor and design tool
- XML was the future of data structures
- Mobile-first? Mobile didn't exist
- Reactive navigation? How about Java Applets...
- ...or even different <img src=""> upon mouseover and mouseleave!
- Want to code a desktop app with web tech? Try Adobe Air!
- NPM stood for "not performant, man"
- Voting on a poll meant the page would refresh
- "Social media" meant HotOrNot.com
- The love sound of the web was a 56k modem connection purrrrr
- Disabling right-click enforced image security
- Bitmap (.bmp) was a viable image format
- JavaScript had a competitor called JScript
- SpyJax'ing let you detect where your user had been
- Social media wall? It's called a "guestbook"...
- ...and a friends list? It's called a "web ring'
- Search engine optimization was spamming the <title> with keywords=
Whew, those where the days. How old are you in web?
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[Original source](https://davidwalsh.name/im-so-old-1)