Piper Thunstrom

I'm a big fan of teaching people technology. Especially relatively simple technology that is foundational to modern computer use. Over the years, I have helped demystify web development for lots of people by doing something very simple:

I built them a single page demo. Like this three-column website layout using CSS grid (on gist.github.com).

If you check out that Github gist, you'll note that it is commented deeply. With commentary on best practices, alternative choices, and what each important rules does.

I'm also a fan of the indie web.

I think people should own their work on the web.

These examples sitting in a gist or some other file share that supports others doesn't sit right with my goals.

One day, when I was asked by more people than I could physically help at once, I realized, these should be a website.

So now they are!

Steal This Website

The philosophy of Steal This Website is founded in the philosophy of the web I grew up with. It's free and intentionally licensed CC-0, so you can borrow or steal bits of markup and styling as you please. It's written with a view of the platform as the raw materials of the web.

I would call it "web brutalism" except that term already means something else.

Do me a favor, and share widely.