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Comment by ki_ | Hacker News Reader

when clicking the link, first though was "introduction to web-design" ^_^ looks interesting though. Thanks.

You know how if you walked into a mechanics shop and it looked like an Apple store something would be amiss. If the mechanic were any good the shop should be covered in grease, adorned with the sort of decor that you wouldn't care about getting covered in grease, and staffed by the sort of people that aren't averse to getting covered in grease. It should be awash in the unintentional indicators of a working class establishment, very much the opposite of a conventionally "well designed" store. A mechanic shop that looks like an Apple store suggests an establishment is trying to sell you on style rather than substance. The indicator of quality for a mechanic shop is an aesthetic that is the opposite of quality.

Same thing applies to certain types of website. A CS professor and textbook author that has the time / interest to make their website "well designed" isn't covered in grease. The 90s DIY HTML adds to the credibility.

The front end of all mechanics shops I have been in for the past decade look just like the waiting room of a doctors office.

In reality, mechanics do book keeping, track inventory, take order, organize excel files, and ask customers to sign contracts just like any other business. Thus their front ends look just like any other.

> A CS professor and textbook author that has the time / interest to make their website "well designed" isn't covered in grease.

They could just drop it in a well designed template.

Also the idea that aesthetics and engineering cannot be conjoined is disproved in both Ferraris and 3D graphic programming.

I can't decide if this says more about the doctors you visit or the mechanics. There are also CVS minute-clinic doctors near me, where the "front-end waiting room" is the CVS store. There similarly are mechanics near me where the "front-end waiting room" is the gas station it is connected to.

Probably regional differences. I live out in a rural township / suburb. If nothing else, we don’t lack for land to have waiting rooms.

The CVS had a waiting room too until Covid.

If your mechanic looks like a doctors office they’re more than likely ripping you off. The best mechanics are smaller shops that don’t have time to make their waiting room look that nice.

From talking with the abode poster I think the problem is that my doctors room doesn’t look fancy, not that my mechanics office looks too nice.

I couldn't disagree more. Everything about this site is perfect.

Sorry it doesn't use enough frameworks or wizbang scroll-hijacking flyovers or email-harvesting popups, but it conveys everything I want to know quickly and efficiently and distraction-free. In recent memory this is the fastest I've found a "download PDF" button. By far.

>In recent memory this is the fastest I've found a "download PDF" button. By far.

That leapt out at me too. Pretty sad it's so rare that it stood out so starkly to both of us.

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