
“Make HTML Great Again”: Campaign site teardowns - dccoolgai
https://trackchanges.postlight.com/track-changes-podcast-3-make-html-great-again-66dbd5ecfd46
======
gkoberger
Don't upvote this. This is a shallow ad for their agency (which evidently
doesn't do WordPress development).

This article highlights the worst of the "webmaster" mentality – ignoring the
end results in favor of things like validation errors and tools used.

They trust Hillary _as a politician_ because the source code has secret
comments? Seriously? And then they trash Chris Christie for the same exact
thing. And Bernie gets two thumbs down (and a shot at him for being a
socialist... along with an ad for the authors) because he used WordPress? They
call his site a mess but don't describe why. Bernie's site is impeccably
designed and works well.

I'm sad about this article. Design and the web play a HUGE role in
presidential campaigns. I happen to believe that you _can_ tell a lot about a
candidate from their website. But this was a shallow, pedantic and
opportunistic waste of a potentially great topic.

~~~
ikeboy
When even Google doesn't care enough to pass validation
[https://validator.w3.org/nu/?doc=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.co...](https://validator.w3.org/nu/?doc=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com%2F)
you wonder if it matters. I once went through the Alexa top 10 or so, IIRC not
one passed validation.

~~~
bphogan
This is the "broken windows" effect in real life.

"Google doesn't care, and these other sites don't care, so why should I care?"

I have found that validation serves a very important purpose - to guide your
development. I have lost count of the times I have encountered CSS with all
sorts of extra junk because things didn't look right, and the reason for it
was that the underlying HTML was invalid.

Yes, the browsers are smart. But they are still guessing. If you leave out a
tag, the browser will close it for you. Not always in the right spot. Invalid
pages could also result in a DOM tree that's not quite right, so JavaScript
could be affected.

Developers should validate their pages just as they lint their code, to ensure
quality.

Of course, if you're using cutting-edge elements, they won't validate. But
that's a little different story. It's not a reason to not validate, it's just
a reason to filter out those errors.

~~~
insanebits
I do not agree with your point that you have to pass validation. First of all
I don't say that you should leave unclosed tags for browser to figure out. Or
doing something crazy to break things.

Some of us still have to support older IE versions which needs to some
workarounds to work with it. Even the validator.w3.org doesn't pass it's own
validator.
[https://validator.w3.org/nu/?doc=https%3A%2F%2Fvalidator.w3....](https://validator.w3.org/nu/?doc=https%3A%2F%2Fvalidator.w3.org)

My point is that we need to use modern tools like html5 while still being
backwards compatible with older browser which means breaking some w3c rules.

Another valid case off the top of my head for breaking w3c(haven't tested if
it passes validation) would be `<meta>` tags inside body tag. Which is part of
the microdata format. Normally you're not supposed to put meta tags outside
head but for while using mircrodata you sometimes have to rely on meta tags
because your design doesn't allow for required(by microdata) to be shown on
the website, so you use meta tag, which doesn't do any harm since it's not
rendered for the user.

~~~
ikeboy
html doesn't give a (valid) way to be backward compatible? That sounds like a
design flaw.

~~~
wagglycocks
It is a design flaw in the older browsers, not the spec itself.

HTML hasn't changed in years, and XHTML is largely backwards compatible.

------
wittekm
My favorite is that Jeb Bush's website used a capitalized I instead of a pipe
symbol, assuming it'd be sans-serifs.

[http://imgur.com/hc3LVwI](http://imgur.com/hc3LVwI)

~~~
guidopallemans
Perhaps they wanted a pipe with serifs?

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oldmanhorton
Seems like this company is a custom web design company, so it is in their best
interest to perpetuate the "Wordpress is bad" meme.

~~~
drops
Their notes with "uh, this is such a mess, should've just hired THIS company
instead" with a link to their own homepage is a pretty big giveaway too. I
just hope it was done in a joking tone because unironically referring to
themselves in a third person is as cringe-worthy as it gets.

------
hayksaakian
not much substance in this article, it's just regurgitating the 'if you use
wordpress you are bad' meme

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whizzkid
That was really interesting, If I was to vote on based on their webpage
qualities, I think Hillary would get my vote there.

Cleanness and text oriented navigation was nice. donation page flow was great.
SSL all the way and direct to the point on links. great job.

I really liked Trump's header though. Color choice and font was great, but the
page load and mixed http and https between links was confusing to me. Whole
page except navigation contains only "Make America great again" nothing else
(made me smile).

Rest of them was not interesting to me.

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jeffjose
So using Wordpress gets 2 thumbs down?

------
wnevets
> Takeaway: “More WordPress. If you want to lose an election…” –Paul “This is
> the most important pattern we’ve found. All of the losers are on
> WordPress.”—Rich

~~~
ryanlol
> Takeaway: “He uses the same technology used in drones to collect money from
> supporters.” –Rich

This one really got me.

> Takeaway: “This passes muster, I would say.” -Rich. Also, Ted Cruz may be
> the Zodiac Killer.

[http://www.zodiac-killer.com/](http://www.zodiac-killer.com/)

------
insanebits
I don't understand why custom solution seems to favourited by them. It's the
same as saying your car is bad because it's running on the most popular fuel.

As a web developer working daily on WordPress websites I would argue that it
can be as fast as anything else. Because those websites are mostly static
which means caching would make it load really fast. Assuming template itself
is written well. So it doesn't matter what engine you're using, it's the
matter of optimization.

As for WordPress itself, the biggest problem in my oppinion is plugin
compatibility. Yes you have thousands of plugins bus most of them doesn't work
exactly/cannot be customized to a given requirements and you end up either
modifying plugin and then maintaining them. Or just writing simplified version
of it yourself. Which makes even more meaintenance overhead.

Also it's not very good for big blogs with more than 100k posts. Because of
the database schema used which is both it's strength and weakness at the same
time.

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jefurii
They list themselves as the "high powered, capitalist web agency" that Bernie
Sanders should be using.

~~~
jupiter2
“You know what Bernie should have done? He should have hired a high priced,
high powered, capitalist web agency, they would have probably killed it for
him.”

People are offended by this remark (Sanders Fans??) but it's just a joke.
Funny too! It speaks to his ideals and the irony... if he had chosen to go
this route. They also make fun of themselves with phrases like "high priced".

Now... some of the comments about other candidates are downright snarky a bit
mean-spirited! Yeah... there's an overall bias.

------
dccoolgai
One interesting idea they floated by in the podcast is that the general
quality of the candidate's website (something technical that they themselves
probably don't completely understand and have to lean on the experience of
others - and know the "right others" to listen to) correlates in some way to
what they would be like as president (managing things that they themselves
don't completely understand and have to lean on the experience of others - and
know the "right others" to listen to) which I hadn't really thought of before,
but I might make a habit of reading source before I vote in the future.

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loeber
What this article didn't mention: Donald Trump's website is designed by
Parscale (www.parscale.com). They don't list that site in their design
portfolio.

~~~
SimpleXYZ
Also, the platform is ExpressionEngine.

~~~
zyxley
EE?! _shudder_

~~~
wnevets
ExpressionEngine isn't terrible.

------
foota
I actually really liked Bernie's website.

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kevinkimball
some of these they have marked as custom platforms are actually NationBuilder,
like Trump

[http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2016-03-03/this-g...](http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2016-03-03/this-
guy-helped-make-trump-possible)

