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Monkey Pox

While there is not yet any definitive confirmation, this news.com story strongly hints at what we've all known for some time: Webmonkey is poised to make the transition from a highly endangered species to an extinct one.

Update 02/15/2004: This rumor, while not official (by the company), is re-inforced by Webmonkey senior editor Michael Calore

Update 02/17/2004: Wired is running an obit for Webmonkey today. So it's officially official.

I've written several times in the past about the declining value of Webmonkey, and I stand by those stories. However, it's never pleasant to witness the passing of something that - at least for a time - had a great impact on life.

Think of it this way: Bob Hope stepped out of the spotlight years ago, but his death last June was (Hope fan or not) certainly not a joyous occasion, and it made one pause and think about Hope and his impact on the world.

The same it true of Webmonkey. While - like Hope's movies/TV shows - Webmonkey will probably never fade away completely, it will never be the same.

Webmonkey will probably remain up in a static, still-here-to-reference form (much like another lamented loss, Suck.com), but the stream of new material just won't be coming any more. In the past, that would have been a huge loss, but - over the last few years - the stream has turned into a trickle.

Regardless, it's a loss, and - perhaps more importantly - a reason to look back and acknowledge what was. Let's call the following my own Monkey Bites:

• First and foremost, the code samples. Written in a "cookbook" format, for the most part ("Here's how to make X using Y and Z"), the code samples were lucid, clear and more frequently than not would cause one to begin coding even before finishing said article.


• The hip, droll text. From the author bios ("Paul Boutin is a technologist and writer who discovered the Internet in 1980 as an MIT freshman and hasn't slept since.") through the story contents ("Since PHP is my bag (it's cheap and easy, just like me!),...."), the breezy verbiage set the tone for the article a whole: No frills; highly accessible.


• A focus on tech, not politics. In an online world of highly-opinionated slashdotters, Mac zealots, Linux evangelists, MS bashers and so on, Webmonkey didn't really care about these pseudo-divisions. Articles were written with the understanding that just about every task could be done many ways; the given article was one of those. Period. No muss; no fuss. Don't think using mySQL on Windows for a guestbook application is a good idea? You might want to sample [this] or [that] article. If you think it's worth a shot, read the rest of the article and draw your own conclusions.


• Written by geeks for geeks. This is important. Unlike many tutorials and books, it didn't try to do everything - it assumed the reader had basic skills (which, of course, varied by given article). For example, if the article was about using PHP to build a database-driven whatever, it didn't try to teach SQL (or the specific SQL syntax for a given database). Articles would give links to other articles when there was a potential for more information needed, but it didn't attempt to embed all this. This was/is crucial to keeping the articles focused, clear and concise (example: For the preceding example, why write a sample query in detail, when "Select * from myTable" will do? )

And - whatever else you might say about Webmonkey - give it this: It had a good run.