3 ms·

At 35, the web is broken, but its inventor hasn't given up hope of fixing it yet

5 points by CrankyBear 3y ago

ggm 3y ago
It's important to recognise precursor systems like Hypercard, and the BBN SGML based mailsystem, in fact SGML itself, as a predecessor to HTML markup (there was an active "why did we use HTML and not SGML" conversation crossing over into XML days). Web did not happen in a vacuum. Gopher and WAIS existed. It's important to understand the distinctions between a protocol (HTTP/S, TLS, QUIC) and an encoding (XML, HTML) and a governance structure (or lack of it) It's important to distinguish between what architects think they are designing as the built environment, and what people actually use space for. And that is true in meat space as well as hyper space.
- fddrdplktrew 3y ago
  Why are those things important? I think the most important things when talking about the web are huge corporations and innovators.
  - ggm 3y ago
    Because the idea the web has a single root in Berners-Lee and that he is definitional for what the web "is" is a bit of a false meme. The roots of these concerns about controls, corporates proceed the web, and were always latent in the web, once it went beyond CERN. He gave birth to a body of code and a protocol and it very rapidly moved beyond his immediate control. The fact that we almost never got access to a read-write framework and it became read-only for most people except behind CGI gated commentaries, the absence of the engagement he wanted, was there in the 0.9 web, not something which emerged in the 1.0 web (ie, almost nobody ever experienced active annotation aspects) Otherwise importance is personal. They're important to me as a historical bread-crumb trail. They inform. Most gopher and wais information emerged into web rapidly. The controls behind the gopher and wais information did not emerge into some new nirvana, web was an access method, overwhelmingly read-mostly. Look in strict literal terms of course it roots in TBL. You can't deny history. The question is what context that lies in. And the context is that to do HTML and HTTP TBL and his related involved people looked at SGML and other things like the Diamond system from BBN (not for a minute do I think that was the progenitor) or Hypercards. They didn't do web in a vacuum.

5 points by CrankyBear 3y ago

ggm 3y ago

It's important to recognise precursor systems like Hypercard, and the BBN SGML based mailsystem, in fact SGML itself, as a predecessor to HTML markup (there was an active "why did we use HTML and not SGML" conversation crossing over into XML days). Web did not happen in a vacuum. Gopher and WAIS existed. It's important to understand the distinctions between a protocol (HTTP/S, TLS, QUIC) and an encoding (XML, HTML) and a governance structure (or lack of it) It's important to distinguish between what architects think they are designing as the built environment, and what people actually use space for. And that is true in meat space as well as hyper space.

fddrdplktrew 3y ago
Why are those things important? I think the most important things when talking about the web are huge corporations and innovators.
- ggm 3y ago
  Because the idea the web has a single root in Berners-Lee and that he is definitional for what the web "is" is a bit of a false meme. The roots of these concerns about controls, corporates proceed the web, and were always latent in the web, once it went beyond CERN. He gave birth to a body of code and a protocol and it very rapidly moved beyond his immediate control. The fact that we almost never got access to a read-write framework and it became read-only for most people except behind CGI gated commentaries, the absence of the engagement he wanted, was there in the 0.9 web, not something which emerged in the 1.0 web (ie, almost nobody ever experienced active annotation aspects) Otherwise importance is personal. They're important to me as a historical bread-crumb trail. They inform. Most gopher and wais information emerged into web rapidly. The controls behind the gopher and wais information did not emerge into some new nirvana, web was an access method, overwhelmingly read-mostly. Look in strict literal terms of course it roots in TBL. You can't deny history. The question is what context that lies in. And the context is that to do HTML and HTTP TBL and his related involved people looked at SGML and other things like the Diamond system from BBN (not for a minute do I think that was the progenitor) or Hypercards. They didn't do web in a vacuum.