I’m So Old: Web Edition

Time can be a funny thing. I still remember discovering HTML, CSS, and JavaScript coding. I still remember my first college programming course. I still remember my first day at my first coding job, then my first day at my second coding job, and then my first day at Mozilla. I still remember my first day coding for MetaMask. This year marks my 20th year as a professional software engineer and it’s happened in the blink of an eye.

Every once in a while I will make an old programming reference to a much younger engineer and then realize they have no idea what I’m talking about.

I’m so old…

• Webpage layouts were being done with <table>s and this new “CSS float” property was becoming the new standard
• Rounded corners were achieved via images and VML hacks for Internet Explorer
• FTP was the best way to upload websites changes
• SVN and copying its trunk was the best versioning tool
• alert and confirm were the standard for “modals”
• Firebug was the best debugging tool available
• The “standard” for getting videos to play properly was finding the right codec to install
• ActionScript knowledge was as valuable as JavaScript knowledge
• Dreamweaver was best in class text editor and design tool
• XML was the future of data structures
• Mobile-first? Mobile didn’t exist
• Reactive navigation? How about Java Applets…
• …or even different <img src=""> upon mouseover and mouseleave!
• Want to code a desktop app with web tech? Try Adobe Air!
• NPM stood for “not performant, man”
• Voting on a poll meant the page would refresh
• “Social media” meant HotOrNot.com
• The love sound of the web was a 56k modem connection purrrrr
• Disabling right-click enforced image security
• Bitmap (.bmp) was a viable image format
• JavaScript had a competitor called JScript
• SpyJax’ing let you detect where your user had been
• Cookies were the pinnacle of user tracking
• Social media wall? It’s called a “guestbook”…
• …and a friends list? It’s called a “web ring’
• Search engine optimization was spamming the <title> with keywords=

Whew, those where the days. How old are you in web?