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I agree. People seem to think that there was a time when the internet was better than it is today. Well, I've been 'online' since before the web was world wide

• resu_nimda 9y ago
  Everyone has a different definition of what's good and what's bad about the web. A lot of smart programmers seem to think almost all software is bad. Probably all software that is actually used is not as good "as it could be." Any evolutionary process is going to be like that. HTTP and HTML were absolutely not designed for many of the things they are used for today. A bunch of really smart people probably could come up with a much better solution for modern usage, and lots of them have tried. But the web has too much inertia (the users are there and don't care about these problems) and, as you say, it more or less works, or can be made to work. It does seem inevitable that it will be superseded eventually, but how far off is that?
  • KGIII 9y ago
    > how far off is that? Whenever an OS depreciates, but not kills, something in an API, somebody ignores that it is depreciated, doesn't use the new method, and writes new software against the now-depreciated function. There are people still using legacy software that got was first written in the 1970s. Someone took that software and converted it from punchcards to hard drives and from memory that was a spinning drum to memory that is solid state. Somewhere, there are COBOL developers still maintaining stuff older than many of the folks that frequent HN. I suspect you're right, in that it will be superseded - but I am willing to wager that it is going to take a long time and never be completely done. There is stuff that hasn't been updated since the 486 days and is mission critical. Fortunately, it works - because nobody has any idea how to fix it if it stops working. As a society, we've accumulated so much technical debt that we may have reached a tipping point where it's simply impossible for us to catch up and it's unrealistic to think we will burn it to the ground and rebuild. I suppose some external force could crash the house of cards but I suspect we'd just rebuild it with new faults or the same old faults. Like you say, HTTP and HTML weren't meant to do this. Now we have webassembly, HTML5, and JavaScript libraries that nobody fully understands. We've now tacked on DRM to the standards, put the real functionality in the hands of ICANN, and crammed our data into towering silos of proprietary goodness. We had a brief moment where we largely owned our devices and our data. Now, we lease supercomputers for our pockets while giving control of our data to a mysterious entity known only as The Cloud. 100 years from now, nobody is going to know how it works and we will attend churches where we pray, sacrifice, and tithe to the god known as The Cloud. It will be superseded, but it will be just another kludge patched on top. It's like cars in Cuba. They are old and functional, but contain engines from a Lada, bumpers from a bus, seats from three different cars and a horse drawn cart, an exhaust made from tin cans, and four different size wheels. And you know what? Those cars are a testament to the resiliency and skill of the Cuban mechanic. They are awesome. It's not amazing that they break down, of course they do. It's amazing that they run at all. On a more serious note, I suspect well just keep patching and tweaking. Eventually things will get better. It has been steadily getting better this whole time. I like to complainand point out the flaws, but it really does function. It's great and the immediacy of information has been a great asset for humanity. The Internet really is better than it has ever been. Searches used to be done by a human. As in, you'd send them your question and they'd go through their directory, make phone calls, contact institutions, and get back to you with an answer - usually 3 days latter. Yup... Three days to get an answer. Sometimes, you had to wait for a system to come online, usually a small localized network, and only then would your email be delivered. It works. It's like a dysfunctional family. Loving, possibly abusive, but our family. I suspect it will continue to improve, slowly but surely. Smart people are constantly innovating and improving. Standards and specs get refined. The Internet, being vast, means there is a place for pretty much everybody. It has it's warts and there are legitimate complaints, but sometimes it actually does what it is supposed to do, when it is supposed to do it. Sometimes, possibly by accident, people make good choices that result in good things. Also, cats... So long as we have cats, the Internet will be just fine. Gotta love it, warts and all.
  • deleted 9y ago
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• 3chelon 9y ago
  Kudos for "lipstick on a pig". My thinking entirely. I don't really understand how the web got so broken. But you're right it's not going to be torn down any time soon, any more than the human eye will unevolve to fix the blind spot. Like biology, the web will evolve with kludge upon kludge, as long as it kinda works. I think the best hope is for some language/platform that abstracts the whole thing away safely and lets you pretend it's not there. (And yes, I'm sure there are hundreds of these already. We just need to all agree on one!)
  • KGIII 9y ago
    Oh yes, one more spec or standard should do the trick! On a more serious note, it has it's faults but it works. Maybe people are asking too much of it? Maybe they need to adjust their expectations? There are lots of ways that it can be improved. I can think of one innovation coming down the pipe and it impresses me. HTML5 doesn't, by itself, really impress me. WebVR, or whatever they are calling it, doesn't impress me - I remember VRML and the fiasco that was. No... The new DRM spec doesn't scar me - I figure it's just going to give a standard interface to what is already going on. What does interest me is the webassembly. That I find interesting though a part of me expects it to end up similar to Java applets from back in the day. It interests me because I am expecting it to be a boondoggle. The rosy-cheeks on the starry-eyed youth have assured me, quite breathlessly, that this is a game changer. This time, this time it will be different. We're finally killing Flash and they've gone and reinvented it. I'm probably going to have to add another 32 GB of RAM, just to use a browser. But, it's going to be different this time. They've got a plan. So, I'm interested in seeing how that turns out. I'm the quintessential optimist. I have every hope in the world that someone will come up with a way to selectively block it. Really, the web is doing okay. When we stop and look at all the crap we've shoveled ont TCP/IP, I'd say it has held up nicely. I really can't think of a single bit of tech that has taken more abuse than TCP/IP. HTML and CSS are up there, but I'm pretty sure TCP/IP can lay claim to the most abused spec. Yet, the 'net lumbers on. It's kind of amazing and it is a great time to be alive.