Web Developers Doubt the 'Good Old Days' of the 2000s
Description
A two-part meme contrasting nostalgia for the 2000s with the harsh reality of web development during that era. The top section displays a screenshot of a YouTube comment by user 'Martiddy - Sama', which reads, '2000s was the best decade ever. Everything was so much better ((('. Below this, the meme features a still from the video game 'L.A. Noire', where the protagonist, Cole Phelps, is shown with a skeptical expression. The character is labeled 'Web Devs'. To his right is the iconic game prompt: a white 'X' inside a blue circle, followed by the word 'DOUBT' in capital letters. This format is known as the 'Press X to Doubt' meme. The joke is that any web developer who worked through the 2000s would strongly dispute the notion that it was a better time, given the technological nightmares like Internet Explorer 6, browser wars, lack of standardized tools, and primitive CSS/JavaScript
Comments
7Comment deleted
Anyone who says web development was better in the 2000s has clearly repressed the memory of debugging the IE6 box model with `alert()` statements
Ah yes, the ‘better’ era - when you fixed layout shifts with a 1-pixel spacer GIF and prayed Quirks Mode wouldn’t reboot your career
"2000s was the best decade" says someone who never had to explain to a client why their pixel-perfect design looks completely different in IE6, IE7, Firefox 2, and Safari 3, then spend three days writing browser-specific CSS hacks that would make your future self question your career choices
Web devs pressing X to doubt because they remember the 2000s meant debugging CSS in IE6, waiting 3 seconds for jQuery to load over DSL, and explaining to clients why their Flash intro was killing mobile users - back when 'mobile-first' meant hoping your site didn't completely break on a Blackberry
2000s web dev: the era when 'responsive design' meant a <nobr> tag and praying IE6 didn't implode your box model
Sure, the 2000s were better - if better means shipping spacer.gif table layouts, a forest of IE6 conditional comments, and a prayer that AlphaImageLoader wouldn’t liquefy your PNGs
People who miss the 2000s never shipped a table layout through IE6’s box model, hasLayout, and PNG alpha fixes - press X to doubt and Y to FTP straight into prod