Web Data Render (WDR)
Languages and libraries
web page data format
SHOW HN2020
How HN took it
23 positive, 46 neutral or asking, 7 mixed, 40 critical, out of 116 comments about the project. Thread score -0.12.
Idea: 22 for, 28 againstExecution: 0 for, 9 againstDesign: 1 for, 3 against
The thread, comment by comment
Each row is a top-level comment and its replies, in HN's order. Select a cell to open that comment on HN.
positive neutral or mixed critical about another commenter or something else the maker
What HN said
What people liked
Clever hack, interesting idea
From 3 comments
what kind of sorcery is this...
cocktailpeanuts on HNI love this! You could use this to syndicate blog posts, sort of like RSS, except each entry is JSON and could be viewed as it's own page rendered by it's own renderer (carried…
Gollapalli on HNI love this. I read through the page source before reading the content of the blog fully to work out what it does. Really simple idea, but clever!
allenu on HN
Objections
Not valid HTML; relies on quirks mode which is brittle
From 3 comments
> For example, this is a valid JSON and web page This is a nice project, but it isn't valid HTML. https://validator.w3.org/nu/?doc=https%3A%2F%2Fwebdatarender.com%2F
lqet on HNFor those like me who needed a little help... I do not fully understand the browser rendering process (someone who does please chime in), but what I gather about how this is…
bogidon on HNIt's a neat trick using the Browser's Quirks Mode to load JSON that can bootstrap a framework, I'm not sure I really understand the benefit though. In order to actually get to…
ajxs on HN
Markdown in JSON is still markup, contrary to the claim
From 2 comments
I'm confused about: > The JSON must contain only pure information without any concern about design or markup. All the design and markup required to render the page must be inside…
ipsum2 on HNFrom what I can see, your JSON still contains "style" information in the form of Markdown. So this doesn't really separate information from design. If we're going to accept…
beshrkayali on HN
Does not work in some browsers such as IE11 and possibly Chrome
From 2 comments
IE11 doesn't render anything. Console errors: HTML1527: DOCTYPE expected. Consider adding a valid HTML5 doctype: "<!DOCTYPE html>". webdatarender.com (2,0) HTML1513: Extra…
tyingq on HNIt doesn't work on my Chrome 87.0.4280.88 MacOS. It works on Safari though.
nkjoep on HN
Solves no clear problem; XSLT or Accept-header negotiation already exist
From 3 comments
This is an interesting technical hack, but I have to ask what problem this is aiming to address?
amanzi on HNI think someone just re-invented XSLT.
Animats on HNOr you could... you know.. do type negotiation per-request based on the Accept header, and serve the rendered markup sans JSON bullshit to clients requesting markup, and the JSON…
stephenr on HN
Requests
Test the file:// and Firefox encoding warning
From 2 comments
Hey! Yes, however now I notice that this is only when running locally. I took your page, replaced script and css with absolute links, and loaded locally as file://
bogidon on HNFor those like me who needed a little help... I do not fully understand the browser rendering process (someone who does please chime in), but what I gather about how this is…
bogidon on HN
Questions
Does it depend on JSON key order?
From 2 comments
The json.org description of an "object" is: > An object is an unordered set of name/value pairs. But this site seems to be assuming that the key/value pairs are parsed in their…
trevor-e on HNRelying on the order of keys in an object seems like a bad idea.
SrslyJosh on HN
Alternatives named
XSLT
From 2 comments
This is a really cool hack. > The JSON must contain only pure information without any concern about design or markup. Wellll.. I mean the json has markdown syntax in it. That's a…
habitue on HNI think someone just re-invented XSLT.
Animats on HN
Reddit .json endpoints
From 1 comment
Isn't Reddit like this, in a way? You can append ".json" at the end and get the data for a page. Others can build their own UI on top of this, if they don't prefer the first…
quineoa on HN
JSON resume tooling
From 1 comment
You know, I once had a resume powered by JSON. It was rendered to a PDF (and HTML) but the syntax was backed by JSON. This was years back and I shudder to even recall the idea. I…
spondyl on HN