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Though HTML was a DTD of SGML served up via a TCP socket. The only revolution was giving the SGML client app away.

chrisseaton 5y ago
Simple as that, huh? Everything sounds simple if you describe it in a facetiously simple way. Michelangelo's David is just some bit of rock that someone's chipped away at.
- justinator 5y ago
  Even simpler is the fact that all Michelangelo did was take away the bits of marble that weren't David.
chasing 5y ago
Sometimes that's all it takes, man. Although I suspect there was a little more to it. Regardless, we're not celebrating the effort — many things take harder work to accomplish — we're celebrating the effect, which has been world-changing.
tonymet 5y ago
don’t forget the headers
tpmx 5y ago
> The only revolution was giving the SGML client app away. No, the revolution was this combination of three relatively simple protocols (HTTP, URL, HTML) which together were incredibly powerful. The SGML crowd never came up with anything like that. They just kept on adding more complexities... Reducing this to "giving away the client app" misses the point of the above so badly.
- zozbot234 5y ago
  > which together were incredibly powerful Incredibly powerful, but not nearly enough for many applications. We have not comprehensively adopted Linked Data, REST and HATEOAS principles which would extend these protocols to be useful with more than simple hypertext. Many of the public JSON-serving endpoints that currently enable much of the "modern" Web could easily be extended to conformant JSON-LD, which would open up a bunch of interesting use cases.
  - tpmx 5y ago
    Quite off-topic. We are talking about the the late 80s/early 90s here.
em3rgent0rdr 5y ago
Indeed every great accomplishment can be reduced to a series of simple increments ontop of previous accomplishments. Brick-by-brick we all stand on solders of giants.
hirundo 5y ago
That is a floccinaucinihilipilification.
- froh 5y ago
  Bless you! That was my first thought. Then I learned this is a real word o-O https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/floccinaucinihilipilification https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/floccinaucinihilipilificati...
milliams 5y ago
...in the category of endofunctors?
froh 5y ago
Mosaic was not the first browser (that was nexus, renamed thus when it's original name WorldWireWeb created some confusion) Mosaic the company indeed. Tried to monetize in the server by giving away the browser. However CERN also provided a free mit licensed Server, CERN httpd https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/CERN_httpd#:~:text=CERN%20httpd%20(later%20also%20known,the%20first%20web%20server%20software https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/CERN_httpd#:~:text=CERN%20ht.... And it was not simply "served via TCP socket", it was served via a protocol that was similar to but simpler as another protocol, http vs ftp.
- icedchai 5y ago
  HTTP 0.9 was incredibly simple. There weren’t even any status codes or headers! There was not much “protocol” to speak of.

Simple as that, huh? Everything sounds simple if you describe it in a facetiously simple way. Michelangelo's David is just some bit of rock that someone's chipped away at.

justinator 5y ago
Even simpler is the fact that all Michelangelo did was take away the bits of marble that weren't David.

chasing 5y ago

Sometimes that's all it takes, man. Although I suspect there was a little more to it. Regardless, we're not celebrating the effort — many things take harder work to accomplish — we're celebrating the effect, which has been world-changing.

tonymet 5y ago

don’t forget the headers

tpmx 5y ago

> The only revolution was giving the SGML client app away. No, the revolution was this combination of three relatively simple protocols (HTTP, URL, HTML) which together were incredibly powerful. The SGML crowd never came up with anything like that. They just kept on adding more complexities... Reducing this to "giving away the client app" misses the point of the above so badly.

zozbot234 5y ago
> which together were incredibly powerful Incredibly powerful, but not nearly enough for many applications. We have not comprehensively adopted Linked Data, REST and HATEOAS principles which would extend these protocols to be useful with more than simple hypertext. Many of the public JSON-serving endpoints that currently enable much of the "modern" Web could easily be extended to conformant JSON-LD, which would open up a bunch of interesting use cases.
- tpmx 5y ago
  Quite off-topic. We are talking about the the late 80s/early 90s here.

em3rgent0rdr 5y ago

Indeed every great accomplishment can be reduced to a series of simple increments ontop of previous accomplishments. Brick-by-brick we all stand on solders of giants.

hirundo 5y ago

That is a floccinaucinihilipilification.

froh 5y ago
Bless you! That was my first thought. Then I learned this is a real word o-O https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/floccinaucinihilipilification https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/floccinaucinihilipilificati...

milliams 5y ago

...in the category of endofunctors?

froh 5y ago

Mosaic was not the first browser (that was nexus, renamed thus when it's original name WorldWireWeb created some confusion) Mosaic the company indeed. Tried to monetize in the server by giving away the browser. However CERN also provided a free mit licensed Server, CERN httpd https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/CERN_httpd#:~:text=CERN%20httpd%20(later%20also%20known,the%20first%20web%20server%20software https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/CERN_httpd#:~:text=CERN%20ht.... And it was not simply "served via TCP socket", it was served via a protocol that was similar to but simpler as another protocol, http vs ftp.

icedchai 5y ago
HTTP 0.9 was incredibly simple. There weren’t even any status codes or headers! There was not much “protocol” to speak of.