This evening I was looking for a link to a simple web developers’ resource, a listing of all the native html elements. I know a listing like this exists, though I haven’t had to look for one in a few years. So, I entered the following search term into Google: “full listing of native html elements -ai”
(That “-ai” is just so Google’s AI summary won’t stick its nose in and bungle the results)
Nowhere in the first 3 pages of results was anything close to a comprehensive list of the elements your web browser should be able to identify in a standard html page. This strikes me as a pretty big deal. No one should have to keep the full list in their heads. And keeping a printout seems dreadfully 1995. This is what made Google valuable to me as a developer. I could use it as my documentation for any language I was coding.
It’s pretty much useless for that now.
I ended up finding it by looking on the W3C (World Wide Web Consortium) site. I knew to look there because I’m an old dude.
So, this will be the first in a series of posts about enshittification. I’ll try to remember to post the examples I run across of our civilization in retrograde. Things should never be easier in the past. But a lot of things are right now.
Hi ho.