Celebrating WWW: 25 Years of the Public Web (featuring @tim-beck as author)
It's now so commonplace that people don't bother mentioning the "WWW" part of a web address anymore.
When someone does say "double-yew, double-yew, double-yew" (or "dubya" from a Texan), it's just annoying, so old-school. But lest we forget, that "WWW" part is the Web. And today marks the 25th anniversary of public access to the World Wide Web.
The actual invention if the Web was in 1989, but it took until August 23, 1991 before it was released by its inventor to the general public.
It is, of course, Sir Tim Berners-Lee who invented the Web.
At the time, he was working as a software engineer at CERN, where scientists from all around the world came to use its huge accelerators. These scientists had a great deal of difficulty sharing information since they were working on disparate systems without a common interface. As Sir Tim said: "Well, I found it frustrating that in those days, there was different information on different computers, but you had to log on to different computers to get at it. Also, sometimes you had to learn a different program on each computer. So finding out how things worked was really difficult. Often it was just easier to go and ask people when they were having coffee..."
Berners-Lee saw a solution to this problem by making use of the Internet -- which by then already had millions of computers connected through it -- using an emerging technology called hypertext. In March 1989, he produced a document called “Information Management: A Proposal” which set out his vision fot the as-yet-unnamed Web. It met with mild enthusiasm and never became an official CERN project, but he was given time to work on it.
This work produced the three fundamental technologies that remain the foundation of today’s Web:
- HTML: HyperText Markup Language
- URI: Uniform Resource Identifier
- HTTP: Hypertext Transfer Protocol
The very first website has been restored and you can browse it here, at its original address: http://info.cern.ch/hypertext/WWW/TheProject.html.
It was Berners-Lee who was the prime advocate of making the underlying code royalty-free, for ever. As he said: “Had the technology been proprietary, and in my total control, it would probably not have taken off. You can’t propose that something be a universal space and at the same time keep control of it.”
It was a great gift to the world. Sir Tim himself never derived great riches from it. But the world is much, much richer for it.
So next time you have to type out "WWW", give a hat tip to Sir Tim.
@gavvet features authors to promote new authors and a diversity of content. All STEEM Dollars for this post go to the featured author. You can find me on steemit chat but my queue is very long and I do take a while to respond at the moment
The growth and development of internet is amazing. What could it be the next 10 yrs, imagine all people will be using internet, no one is going to go out because they can everything in net. I remember when i was studying, there was internet yet, now, even a child have yet gone to school, they already about internet.
Happy Birthday WWW. Thanks for the reminder... I didn't come across it until 1995, while at UCLA, as I was never a tech guy, but heard whispers. Once I saw it (and my first glimpses were looking up Phish with some fellow fans), I knew it was a game changer.
That's a good article, and I do appreciate what Sir Tim Berners-Lee did for everyone. Now the caveat, not saying he did this intentionally, or this is some part of a CERN conspiracy. However, it is interesting to note the following:
I call it spiritually coincidental, you can make up your own mind about it. However it is interesting when comparing the "internet" to this passage:
\ (•◡•) /
Thanks to guys like sir Tim that we have a free internet today! He could have patented his creation and followed the regular "route" but the fact that he didn't will stand out in history. Thank you Sir Tim for the gift to the world!
Amazing that it's only been 25 years! What a ride! Can't imagine what the next 25 years will bring!
I know it. but, thank you for sharing it :)
It was really hard explaining the Web before people just got used to it because they didn't even have words like click and jump and page.
The original idea of the web was that it should be a collaborative space where you can communicate through sharing information.
Tim Berners Lee
I remember when I was younger and my parents took me to a library that was having a event going on where they where explaining what this new technology was. It amazing to see it change over the years. It so much more refined and has given rise to changes that have truly shaped how our economy works. It will be interesting to see how blockchain tech can take it to the next level :D
Very cool post. Crazy to think the internet was available when I was first born, but not widely adopted or utilized for quite some time.
I will be forever grateful for the opportunities provided by this man and those who worked together on the project.
I will tip my hat (when I wear one) each time I write my W's and am excited to see the evolution further that is the Internet of Things.