[dispo001]

You would think text documents work wonderfully but weirdest parts of html [to me] are...

1) the rendering of things outside the viewport. The way wrapping of divs and lines works it seems impossible to make it render the way pdf did from day 1(?) I don't even know if there is a maximum length for pdf but in html you really should try to stay under 20 000 lines. I know, it seems like I'm splitting hairs here, but before the early 90's you could easily scroll though the entire memory of the system as if it was a single document. The amount of code was kind of a lot smaller than the infinite scroll web page requesting pre-cut chunks of xml or json where you get to manually measure the size of elements then get to do crazy calculations with the scroll offset if a new element needs to be inserted above the stuff the user is looking at.

And 2) not having a nice way of doing a reference section summarizing the stuff linked in a text kind of ruins the joy of having links in the text. One ends up building a kind of disposable experience if the text is long enough.

Combined, it's like having a pile of pages that are all the entry point. This is lovely for short reads but far from what books use to be.

I suppose the ultimate creation is one such article that promises everyone a fire breathing pony with laser eyes in the soon to follow up.

When you write one, be sure to rage at the thing everyone loves and to suggest abolishing it - to be replaced by that pony you will get in the next episode!

I for one am all ready to be disappointed by this holy grail of subscribe baiting.