IdeaWell

Project ideas from Hacker News discussions.

Example.com just launched the biggest redesign in decades

Original Article

Hacker News Discussion

📝 Discussion Summary (Click to expand)

Three prevalent themes in the discussion

1. Language selection / localization rationale

Commenters debated how the site should choose which language to show (IP‑based, Accept-Language, or a fixed set such as the UN official languages) and why bandwidth concerns drive those decisions.

  • “What would have been nice is that depending on the visitors IP address’s region, showing a localised message instead of fixed number of languages” — sajithdilshan
  • “As it tends to be heavily trafficked, the overall bandwidth is a key consideration” — zahrevsky
  • “I believe it's just using the official languages of the UN” — erhuve

2. Use of JavaScript and performance/bandwidth trade‑offs

Many noted the redesign moved content (including the SVG icon) into an external JS file, questioned whether CSS could have sufficed, and highlighted bandwidth savings for non‑JS clients.

  • “For some reason the localization still requires javascript… (I'm pretty sure the transition could have been done in just CSS as well)” — p‑t
  • “Well, no. The purpose of the redesign is to move as much of the page content as possible into an external javascript file. There's no question of what parts of the page require javascript; the question is what parts of the page can be moved into javascript.” — thaumasiotes
  • “Reducing egress bandwidth, if you have automated clients that don't support JS you save precious bytes from being served by not embedding the SVG…” — worg

3. example.com as a de‑facto service for testing/connectivity

Despite IANA’s statement that the domain is “not a service,” many users rely on it to debug captive portals, check basic HTTP connectivity, or as a lightweight “is the internet up?” check.

  • “I use it to navigate into captive wifi portals that always seem to be misconfigured.” — chews
  • “Same here! Yes, I used it as the well‑known site that supported unencrypted http and no HSTS. Yes, I was one of those guys using the site 'as a service' rather than simply documentation.” — ButlerianJihad
  • “Even though IANA says example.com is intended for documentation purposes and not as a service, I feel that it nonetheless serves as a service to the broader internet.” — reincoder

🚀 Project Ideas

Generating project ideas…

LocaleDoc: Edge‑powered multilingual placeholder

Summary

  • Serves localized documentation placeholder text based on the Accept‑Language header (with optional IP‑based fallback) without requiring JavaScript.
  • Delivers an ultra‑low‑payload HTML page (<1 KB) from a CDN edge, ideal for testing, examples, and captive‑portal checks.

Details

Key Value
Target Audience Developers, technical writers, QA engineers who need a reliable, language‑aware placeholder page
Core Feature Language‑negotiated static HTML served from an edge worker; optional geo‑IP fallback
Tech Stack Cloudflare Workers (or Fastly Compute@Edge), KV store for language strings, pure HTML/CSS
Difficulty Medium
Monetization Hobby

Notes

  • HN commenters asked for localization via Accept‑Language or IP and complained about the current JS‑heavy redesign and bandwidth waste.
  • LocaleDoc removes JavaScript, SVG, and extra assets while still giving users the language they expect, making it a drop‑in replacement for example.com in docs and tutorials.

PlainProbe: Minimal HTTP connectivity test endpoint

Summary

  • Returns a fixed plaintext body (e.g., OK) with a configurable status code, accessible via both HTTP and HTTPS without any redirects.
  • Purpose‑built for captive‑portal detection, network testing, and CI health checks where a zero‑overhead, predictable response is required.

Details

Key Value
Target Audience Network admins, DevOps engineers, developers needing a dependable probe for captive portals, firewall tests, and automated scripts
Core Feature Simple HTTP/S endpoint that returns a known string, no TLS redirect, no HTML, no JS, minimal headers
Tech Stack Go binary (net/http) deployed on a cheap VPS or Cloudflare Workers; optional TLS termination via Let’s Encrypt
Difficulty Low
Monetization Hobby

Notes

  • Users cited neverssl.com and example.com for navigating captive Wi‑Fi portals and expressed frustration when those sites started redirecting to HTTPS or adding extra payload.
  • PlainProbe stays strictly HTTP (or HTTPS if explicitly requested) and returns a deterministic response, satisfying the need for a lightweight “is the network up?” check.

VersionedStub: Immutable, content‑addressable example pages

Summary

  • Provides example.com‑style stub pages whose content is addressed by a hash (e.g., IPFS CID), guaranteeing an identical response for automated tests.
  • Users can request a specific version via URL path, ensuring test reproducibility and immunity to sudden changes.

Details

Key Value
Target Audience QA engineers, CI/CD pipelines, documentation toolchains that rely on example.com for stub responses
Core Feature Immutable stub pages served via IPFS gateway or a custom CDN, versioned by content hash; optional alias to latest
Tech Stack IPFS cluster (or S3 + Cloudflare Workers for routing), HTML only
Difficulty Medium
Monetization Hobby (public gateway free) or Revenue‑ready: pay‑per‑gateway usage

Notes

  • Commenters noted that example.com is often used in automated tests but can change, causing flaky failures (Hyrum’s Law).
  • VersionedStub lets teams pin a specific response hash, eliminating surprise updates while still offering a simple, low‑bandwidth placeholder for documentation.

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