Top all-time · #457
Christian Heilmann
Personal blog · christianheilmann.comwebprogramming
Christian Heilmann's personal blog at christianheilmann.com covers web and programming. Since 2011, 124 different Hacker News readers have linked it 180 times, most often “Can we stop bad-mouthing CSS in developer talks, please?”. It is still writing: the last post was on 2026-10-28, and you can follow it by feed.
Too few sampled comments (7) to say how often HN recommends it.?
Why HN links it
Linked as a source on JavaScript failing in the browser, web standards and the AMP debate. One commenter calls his interview with an AMP developer fantastic.
- Recommended for · 1 comments
- the Paul Bakaus AMP interview, called fantastic for grilling him on the thread's issues
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 7 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
Most-linked posts?
- Can we stop bad-mouthing CSS in developer talks, please?6 people · 6 mentions · first linked 2016-10-05
- That "JavaScript not available" case3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2011-12-06
- Ad Blockers helped kill the open web3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2025-12-17
- Debugging JavaScript – console.loggerheads?3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2017-07-09
- Web developer tool secrets that shouldn’t be secrets2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2021-11-01
- A more complicated Web2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2019-01-16
- Web Truths: JavaScript can't be trusted2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2017-09-27
- Do you know that there is an HTML tables API?2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2025-10-09
- Noise cancellation for devs (click-bait burndown and exp. impact on innovation)2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2022-04-09
- Rethinking Device Emulation in Browsers2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2022-07-20
What Hacker News says?
Christian Heilmann (formerly of Mozilla, now Microsoft) recently interviewed[0] AMP developer Paul Bakaus. It was a fantastic interview, as Heilmann grilled Bakaus on some of the issues raised in this thread. [0]: https://www.christianheilmann.com/2017/01/05/first-decoded-c...
Comment linking /2017/01/05/first-decoded-chat-of-the-year-paul-bakaus-on-amp/
on “Google AMP Is Not a Good Thing”Submitted Web developer tool secrets that shouldn’t be secrets as a story · 428 points
HN discussionFound somewhere on the internet a few days ago: LLMs are Dunning-Kruger as a service. Edit: it was https://christianheilmann.com/2025/10/30/ai-is-dunning-kruge...
Comment linking /2025/10/30/ai-is-dunning-kruger-as-a-service/
on “LLMs are steroids for your Dunning-Kruger”Submitted The web starts on page four as a story · 306 points
HN discussionYou can automate this in VSCode, very handy. https://christianheilmann.com/2021/04/14/quick-vs-code-tip-a...
Comment linking /2021/04/14/quick-vs-code-tip-automatically-add-image-width-and-height-to-images/
on “Making Websites Small”Submitted AI is Dunning-Kruger as a service as a story · 268 points
HN discussionKinda adorable how people keep arguing back and forth, but fail to take notes on how the actual Moz employees act or think on it. And most of them think he is entitled to his beliefs and acts, and he should not be banished for it, even if they do not agree with him. Please, try to learn this approach, pro-gay activists. http://bholley.wordpress.com/2014/03/31/on-brendan-eich-and-... https://staktrace.com/spout/entry…
Comment linking /2014/03/31/on-hating/
on “OkCupid urges users to abandon Firefox”Submitted Do you know that there is an HTML tables API? as a story · 253 points
HN discussion>If Free Software "fights for the users", then it needs to go to where the users are, and that's the web. To what extent? Just because a mass of users are somewhere, doesn't make that environment the right place for free software. But I'm not saying it's a wrong place. But it's not the only possible place. A popular environment might be by its nature unsuitable for free software, and free software developers would b…
Comment linking /2016/10/05/can-we-stop-bad-mouthing-css-in-developer-talks-please/
on “Modern Web 101: From Free Software Fetishism to Free Web”Submitted The sum of all knowledge and the sorry state of the web as a story · 237 points
HN discussion"I figure we're at the point on the web where Javascript et al would be expected in your browser," A browser cannot always recuperate when JavaScript fails to arrive - what should it do at that point? A recent example: the outage of googleapis.com CDN caused problems on many sites using JavaScript hosted there all because OpenDNS blacklisted the domain as a phishing domain. * http://www.thewhir.com/web-hosting-news/…
Comment linking /2011/12/06/that-javascript-not-available-case/
on “Netflix live in the UK”Submitted Of parser-fetishists and semi-colons as a story · 153 points
HN discussionNot everyone surfs the web with Lynx. Whilst I understand the need for websites to stand the test of time and be "curlable", there are still many 'appy' websites out there that fall back to plain HTML when we need it. I'm a big fan of archival services like Pinboard which I have been running now for 3-4 years under an archival account ― it has terabytes of raw HTML data that I can peruse at any time and do a full te…
Comment linking /2011/12/06/that-javascript-not-available-case/
on “Js;dr = JavaScript Required; Didn’t Read”Submitted Turning a GitHub Page into a Progressive Web App as a story · 78 points
HN discussionSubmitted Nobody should be a "content creator" as a story · 70 points
HN discussionSubmitted Don't tell me what my browser can't do as a story · 54 points
HN discussionSubmitted The myth of the “modern browser” as a story · 50 points
HN discussionSubmitted You are falling behind because you haven't fed the insincerity machine as a story · 37 points
HN discussionSubmitted Torn and weary (on Brendan Eich and Mozilla) as a story · 37 points
HN discussionSubmitted What comes after senior developer? as a story · 35 points
HN discussionSubmitted Advancing JavaScript without breaking the web as a story · 29 points
HN discussionSubmitted Why “just use Adblock” should never be a professional answer as a story · 27 points
HN discussionSubmitted Homeopathic HTML Solutions as a story · 26 points
HN discussionSubmitted What if you could use VS Code as the editor of in-browser Developer Tools? as a story · 23 points
HN discussionSubmitted Web bloat isn’t a knowledge problem as a story · 20 points
HN discussionSubmitted Can we stop bad-mouthing CSS in developer talks, please? as a story · 15 points
HN discussionSubmitted Developer tool secrets that shouldn't be secrets as a story · 13 points
HN discussionSubmitted Web Truths: JavaScript can't be trusted as a story · 12 points
HN discussionSubmitted Can we stop bad-mouthing CSS in developer talks, please? as a story · 12 points
HN discussionSubmitted I will miss the 'Douglas Crockford of browsers' as a story · 11 points
HN discussion
