Lowriders & websites

My recent post on removing classes from my personal site was unusual in a few ways; I got a surprising number of kind emails about it, and on the flip side, it broke containment and ended up on Hacker News. I know you shouldn’t look at the comments. No good can possibly come from looking at the comments. I looked at the comments.

My immediate takeaway; the advice on not reading Hacker News comments is good advice. My less immediate takeaway had to do with one comment in particular. The commenter in question – let’s call them ElonStan420 – was taking me to task for the following line:

Also, just look at that markup. So clean. So shiny.

According to ElonStan420, I’d committed the ultimate Very Serious Programmer sin of putting time and energy towards something that “doesn’t really matter”.

It instantly reminded of our annual trip to the California State Fair. Along with corn dogs cattle, and carnival rides, the state fair features yearly exhibitions of various facets of California culture. On rotation this year was an exhibit on lowriders, with a dozen or so examples arranged in a circle, hoods, trunks, and doors ajar so you could see every detail.

I don’t profess to know much about lowrider culture, but I can tell you this; those cars were beautiful. Obviously, the paint and pinstripes were immaculate. But what struck me was the fact that there was’t a single part of these vehicles that received anything other than the utmost care and attention. The springs, the struts, the frame, the engine compartment, everything. They felt more like functional sculptures than “car”, and absolutely oozed pride-of-craft. That’s not me editorializing; in many instances, the owner was standing by, beaming with pride at the oooohs and ahhhs from the crowd.

I think of ElonStan420 standing in that exhibit hall, eyeing those cars with disdain because all that time, energy, care, and expression “doesn’t really matter”. Those hand-painted pinstripes don’t make the car faster or cheaper. Chrome-plated everything doesn’t make it more efficient. No one is going to look under the hood anyway.

The thing is, this particular brand of “functional absolutism” that’s widely held in tech circles is a bankrupt philosophy. It leaves no room for beauty, no room for expression, no room for investing time and care in something for no other reason than you find it satisfying to do so.

Should every website be the subject of maximal craft? No, of course not. But in a industry rife with KPI-obsessed, cookie-cutter, vibe-coded, careless slop, we could use more lowriders.