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But the WWW - that is, the "Internet" as most people know it and as relevant in this context - was build by a Brit in Switzerland, wasn't it? By basically addin

But the WWW - that is, the "Internet" as most people know it and as relevant in this context - was build by a Brit in Switzerland, wasn't it? By basically adding the URL concept, anchors/links, and HTTP to an SGML vocabulary readily described in ISO 8879 (SGML) to implement visual paradigms already known from early-90s multimedia apps.

kragen 5y ago
Yes, except for the visual paradigms thing, and the "as relevant in this context" bit; the WWW was text only for years, except in the sense that you could use it to download files of any type. And he wasn't doing it for profit. But he was doing it on a network that allowed that kind of decentralized extensibility, unlike CompuServe, Minitel, Tymnet, AOL, Facebook, or AT&T. An interesting feature of capitalism that Marx liked to talk about a lot is that they can be unstable, like democracies: participants in a free market are free to pursue their own profits, but by far the most profitable situation for them is to become a monopoly or monopsony, which destroys the freedom of the market and ends capitalism. So we have this interesting situation where the internet, arising from government planning and with commercial use prohibited for decades, ended up being freer even for commercial use than the alternatives established by for-profit companies like CompuServe, Tymnet, and AT&T. (In the same way, a politician in a democracy is free to pursue power by getting elected, but if they are sufficiently successful at pursuing power, they end democracy.)
- peoplefromibiza 5y ago
  > the WWW was text only for years actually it wasn't since the beginning relevant quote from Wikipedia [1] > WorldWideWeb is capable of displaying basic style sheets, downloading and opening any file type with a MIME type that is also supported by the NeXT system (PostScript, movies, and sounds), browsing newsgroups, and spellchecking. In earlier versions, images are displayed in separate windows, until NeXTSTEP's Text class gained support for Image objects. WorldWideWeb is able to use different protocols: FTP, HTTP, NNTP, and local files. Later versions are able to display inline images. In 1990 the "Hypermedia Browser/Editor" by Sir Timothy John Berners-Lee already supported images [2] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WorldWideWeb https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WorldWideWeb [2] https://www.artribune.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/Il-Web-nel-1990.-Image-courtesy-CERN.jpg https://www.artribune.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/Il-Web-...
  - kragen 5y ago
    I said, "the WWW was text only for years, except in the sense that you could use it to download files of any type." You seem to have responded that actually it wasn't because you could use it to download files of any type, including images (which you could display), and that years later it was able to display inline images (after pmarca added them to Mosaic in 01993). Well, that is true, but your implication that it contradicts what I said is false.
    - peoplefromibiza 5y ago
      > You seem to have responded that actually it wasn't because you could use it to download files of any type I'm not English native speaker, but I'm quite sure this sentence doesn't mean what you think it means. I'll quote it again > In earlier versions, images are displayed in separate windows, until NeXTSTEP's Text class gained support for Image objects BTW, yes, everything you see in a browser's webview is "downloaded", even today Inline or not, the web wasn't text only from inception (it was designed to support different media types according to the mime type mappings of the system, it's not a coincidence). Lee called it hypermedia browser, not hypertext. > years later it was able to display inline images by years later I think you mean by 1990 This [1] is from the NEXTSTEP Reference Volume 2 (published in 1990) read the last line [1] https://i.ibb.co/tB0jCtn/image.png https://i.ibb.co/tB0jCtn/image.png
      - kragen 5y ago
        Even though the browser would guess MIME types based on filename, HTTP didn't have MIME types until HTTP 1.0; HTTP/0.9 as of 01992 still didn't have them: https://www.w3.org/Protocols/HTTP/Response.html https://www.w3.org/Protocols/HTTP/Response.html I didn't use the NeXT WorldWideWeb browser, so I don't have firsthand knowledge, but in http://web.archive.org/web/20110131164401/http://diveintomark.org/archives/2009/11/02/why-do-we-have-an-img-element http://web.archive.org/web/20110131164401/http://diveintomar... you can read TimBL commenting in 01993 about possible alternative ways of adding inline image support in ways that make it clear that he hadn't yet implemented any kind of inline image support. So I guess either the Wikipedia page is wrong or the page you posted is wrong about what NeXtStEp could support in 01990.

kragen 5y ago

Yes, except for the visual paradigms thing, and the "as relevant in this context" bit; the WWW was text only for years, except in the sense that you could use it to download files of any type. And he wasn't doing it for profit. But he was doing it on a network that allowed that kind of decentralized extensibility, unlike CompuServe, Minitel, Tymnet, AOL, Facebook, or AT&T. An interesting feature of capitalism that Marx liked to talk about a lot is that they can be unstable, like democracies: participants in a free market are free to pursue their own profits, but by far the most profitable situation for them is to become a monopoly or monopsony, which destroys the freedom of the market and ends capitalism. So we have this interesting situation where the internet, arising from government planning and with commercial use prohibited for decades, ended up being freer even for commercial use than the alternatives established by for-profit companies like CompuServe, Tymnet, and AT&T. (In the same way, a politician in a democracy is free to pursue power by getting elected, but if they are sufficiently successful at pursuing power, they end democracy.)

peoplefromibiza 5y ago
> the WWW was text only for years actually it wasn't since the beginning relevant quote from Wikipedia [1] > WorldWideWeb is capable of displaying basic style sheets, downloading and opening any file type with a MIME type that is also supported by the NeXT system (PostScript, movies, and sounds), browsing newsgroups, and spellchecking. In earlier versions, images are displayed in separate windows, until NeXTSTEP's Text class gained support for Image objects. WorldWideWeb is able to use different protocols: FTP, HTTP, NNTP, and local files. Later versions are able to display inline images. In 1990 the "Hypermedia Browser/Editor" by Sir Timothy John Berners-Lee already supported images [2] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WorldWideWeb https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WorldWideWeb [2] https://www.artribune.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/Il-Web-nel-1990.-Image-courtesy-CERN.jpg https://www.artribune.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/Il-Web-...
- kragen 5y ago
  I said, "the WWW was text only for years, except in the sense that you could use it to download files of any type." You seem to have responded that actually it wasn't because you could use it to download files of any type, including images (which you could display), and that years later it was able to display inline images (after pmarca added them to Mosaic in 01993). Well, that is true, but your implication that it contradicts what I said is false.
  - peoplefromibiza 5y ago
    > You seem to have responded that actually it wasn't because you could use it to download files of any type I'm not English native speaker, but I'm quite sure this sentence doesn't mean what you think it means. I'll quote it again > In earlier versions, images are displayed in separate windows, until NeXTSTEP's Text class gained support for Image objects BTW, yes, everything you see in a browser's webview is "downloaded", even today Inline or not, the web wasn't text only from inception (it was designed to support different media types according to the mime type mappings of the system, it's not a coincidence). Lee called it hypermedia browser, not hypertext. > years later it was able to display inline images by years later I think you mean by 1990 This [1] is from the NEXTSTEP Reference Volume 2 (published in 1990) read the last line [1] https://i.ibb.co/tB0jCtn/image.png https://i.ibb.co/tB0jCtn/image.png
    - kragen 5y ago
      Even though the browser would guess MIME types based on filename, HTTP didn't have MIME types until HTTP 1.0; HTTP/0.9 as of 01992 still didn't have them: https://www.w3.org/Protocols/HTTP/Response.html https://www.w3.org/Protocols/HTTP/Response.html I didn't use the NeXT WorldWideWeb browser, so I don't have firsthand knowledge, but in http://web.archive.org/web/20110131164401/http://diveintomark.org/archives/2009/11/02/why-do-we-have-an-img-element http://web.archive.org/web/20110131164401/http://diveintomar... you can read TimBL commenting in 01993 about possible alternative ways of adding inline image support in ways that make it clear that he hadn't yet implemented any kind of inline image support. So I guess either the Wikipedia page is wrong or the page you posted is wrong about what NeXtStEp could support in 01990.