Infinum Blog

I used lint for C some 20 or 25 years ago, then moved to using dynamical languages (Perl, Ruby, JS.) Not much use of static analysis tools for those languages I thought (but for example check https://www.infinum.co/the-capsized-eight/articles/top-8-tools-for-ruby-on-rails-code-optimization-and-cleanup). I used Java sometimes and took advantage of Netbeans/Eclipse's hints about Java code but I use emacs for everything else (some vim too).

I used jslint on a JavaScript project a few months ago. It catched a few things I overlooked, I learned a couple of things (example: it's useless to define a var inside a loop) but it's also very opinionated and insisted that I write code in a way that pleases its author. I had to refactor working code to make most of the warnings go away. I ended up with something that worked as well as the original but was much more complicated to read (at least for me). I stopped using it and regretted making all those changes to the code. There are some configuration switches but nothing that could make it work for me. I should check jshint but unfortunately jslint primed me against that kind of tools.

I prefer to catch errors with tests and test coverage tools. They must be used anyway and they bend to me, not the other way around.

I wonder if you're design blind? I've met a few people like that before. If that's all you think there is to a design, the 'standard' layout, you've missed a lot.

Are you seriously going to tell me you can't see the similarity between:

http://www.infinum.co/services
http://kintek.com.au/services/

That most websites don't have that curve, or the spacing on the left/right or the little bar above the menu rather than below or any of the things that screams a rip? Then scroll down to the footer and they're identical.

Go open any other software consultancy website and see if you can see those same similarities?

There's so much more to a design than just the grid layout.

I've seen this happen myself at a company I consulted for, they told the designer they wanted a website that looked like X's website, so the designer pretty much cloned the website, moved a couple of things around and changed the logo. Client thought it was wonderful.

On a separate note, does anyone else find the indenting of the HTML on the infinum site to be very odd?

Did nobody asking this question look at this screenshot:
http://www.infinum.co/system/uploads/2013-06/kintek/kintek-first-draft.png

Look at the area immediately below the fold.

It's one of the most blatant examples of plagiarism I've ever seen.

It's arguably worse than simple wholesale lifting of css, since they've carefully and deliberately redrawn distinctive design elements, and lifted half the copy as well

And this is a medium-sized design company, in a developed country. And it got nominated for an award.

Sure, the design has evolved a bit since it started as a direct copy, and the design wasn't that original in the first place, but I'm baffled by people suggesting the similarities might have been accidental.

- The scrolling animations on the header are exactly the same.

- The curved/depressed backgrounds behind the hero image (fairly unique) are the same shape and style.

- Page sizing is the same.

- Color scheme is the same, with blue swapped out for red.

These are just from glancing quickly between the two sites. Combined with the overall similarity, the fact that the scrolling animation is exactly the same is the most damning evidence that they deliberately copied the other site.

Also, compare http://www.infinum.co/services with http://kintek.com.au/showcase/ - specifically, the "home > showcase" nav.