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Webmonkey Closes its Doors
An anonymous reader writes "According to Wired, Webmonkey is being closed by TerraLycos after 8 years of teaching practical web building skills and bucking more traditional outlets. They've written some good stuff over the years - in fact, I first understood the significance of XML after reading one of their articles."
Rest well, WebMonkey. You taugh us all so much. Someone should e-mail them and ask if they can mirror the papers, so the legacy of the WebMonkey may live on forever.
The Yasashii Syndicate ||
What are you some kind of communist? The Internet is about making profit not some crazy hippie idea of freely exchanging knowledge for the benefit of mankind. Did you use the useless network of networks called the Internet before it began to be commercialized around 1993? I doubt it. There was nothing there except research papers and the occasional MUD or usenet article. Not until sites like Amazon or eBay came along did the Internet become truly useful.
Gawd almighty, do you people ever, ever quit? Of course some stuff is Microsoft centric! That's just how it is. IE actually makes a damn fine platform if you develop specifically for it, why is that so wrong?
I haven't been on Webmonkey for ages. However, when I did, I remember it as a resource that was unusual in the way that it was able to pander to both the inexperienced and the experienced alike. It provided a decent and friendly place for individuals to start learning about web design/programming, while also serving as a viable reference for experienced web designers.
There are a huge number of yeast infections in this county. Probably because we're downriver from the bread factory.
What are you some kind of communist? The Internet is about making profit not some crazy hippie idea of freely exchanging knowledge for the benefit of mankind. Did you use the useless network of networks called the Internet before it began to be commercialized around 1993? I doubt it. There was nothing there except research papers and the occasional MUD or usenet article. Not until sites like Amazon or eBay came along did the Internet become truly useful.
I can't tell if you are joking or not, which is scary.
I know you probably are, but I've also known people who think exactly like that.
Heh.
Treehugger? Treehugger... Treehugger!
because you lock out users who may not be using MSIE? and perhaps because the WWW is developed on standards that everyone but Microsoft follows?
It seems as if TerraLycos is cleaning house and pulling the plug on unprofitable operations. Furthermore, it seems as if the Lycos search engine itself is one of those elements being downplayed.
The current Lycos Home Page still has the search box, but they're talking about the "new Lycos" which is all about the non-search sites that are part of the Lycos Network. It seems as if Lycos has fallen into an also-ran status.
Another classic search engine met the same fate a few years ago. When Infoseek was bought up by Disney, it was supposed to be the anchor of the Go Network. When that didn't work out, the core part of the Go Network shut down, leading to a Go Network homepage that does nothing but link to stories on the surviving Disney-owned sites and provide a Google-powered search box.
When we see Lycos Search powered by Google, we'll know that the layoff spree is complete...
A couple of you posted some links for archives and also metioned something about lawyers and licenses - as in it may be illegal to archive the site?. It would be nice if the Webmonkey folks gave their content to someone like GNU - officially so that their work would live on.
There is no spoon or sig.
I don't think Webmonkey will go dark, it's just that no new content will be added.
Webmonkey has a big name, and Terra-Lycos can probably still make ad money off it enough to cover the costs of keeping a server or two running.
At least, that's what I think (and hope)
Think you're bummed? This is the first time I've heard of it. After reading a few things, I wish I had known if it back when I was first fiddling with html and php. Would have made things go much more smoothly.
Cogito ergo sum in Slashdot.
Back when I was a n00b, webmonkey was the place I went to learn HTML. They've always been a neat and friendly place.
I was kind of assuming they'd close. In recent years they've been lacking on 'new' technologies, that's my impression. They were fairly strong years ago, when the web technologies were still overseeable und basic: html, javascript, cgi... and then nowadays it's just too much to cover for webmonkey.
Thanks WM for offering your *free* articles, they've been a great recource over the years.
Is there anything being done to retain this vast wealth of well presented knowledge for other's who have yet to benefit from webmonkey? When I first started getting into making a web page the first thing I realized is that there are a lot of people that have written quite a bit on the subjects, but none of them have done it in a way that a beginner would understand. Then I came across webmonkey and I was amazed. I used their website to get into html, stylesheets, dhtml, and there was quite a bit that I never managed to get into quite yet.
IMHO, while they were great for beginners and I loved going there, it seemed they stoped making any significant additions to their content years ago -- and this was part of their downfall. The wired article even mentions how they often reshuffled old content to make it seem new.
meep
"With Microsoft products like Frontpage and IIS anybody can become a web genius." God, I hope you were kidding. What a ridiculous statement! With products like Frontpage, anybody can churn out incomprehensible, invalid, bloated crap that only works (and barely at that) in one browser. Sure, anyone can make *something* with programs like Frontpage, but that doesn't mean it will be good, or even usable. How many sites have you seen with incomprehensible navigation (or no navigation to speak of), with such horrible design you can't even read the content, with....the list goes on. There's a hell of a lot more to becoming a web designer/developer than cobbbling together some html. There are UI considerations, information architecture, maintainability of code, and much more. Does picking up a copy of Quicken make one a CPA? If so, a lot of high-prices CFO's are out of a job!
Or you can use a product like Teleport, or you can use "wget -r -l 6 hotwired.lycos.com/webmonkey" for the same functionality, if you're not on a Windows machine. ;)
"Victory means exit strategy, and it's important for the President to explain to us what the exit strategy is." G.W.Bush