10 Years of the World Wide Web 525
NCSA Mosaic was first released ten years ago today (oh, I guess you could mark time from the 1.0 release, but who's counting), marking the first milestone in the evolution of the graphical World Wide Web. HTTP was originally developed between 1989-1991, but didn't take off until there was a useful browser which could display inline images. You can still download old versions of Mosaic from browsers.evolt.org. So, all you folks who think you have a real handle on technological progress: what will information-access-over-electronic-networks look like in 2013?
Re:I predict... (Score:2, Insightful)
Actually, this can be quite wrong. With quantumcomputing becoming clearer and closer, we might be facing (what was it?) 16 positions in stead of just 'on' and 'off'.
Re:10 years... So similiar... (Score:5, Insightful)
The DOM. Basically, the browser itself is now scriptable and the page can interact via Javascript or anything else aware of the DOM. Although a result of evolving document standards, that's actually a browser feature since the processing for it has to be done locally.
We also have the mobile browsers on phones/PDAs with auto-resizing etc.
Beyond that, I'd pretty much agree with you. If it's not broken...
Cheers,
Ian
Re:10 years... So similiar... (Score:5, Insightful)
Lots of the "improvements" (I use the term loosely) are in the form of supported formats/scripts, plugins, handling of international character sets, etc...
AND a ton of CRAP. BUT- just for fun, have you tried surfing using Lynx lately? It just doesn't fly anymore. Just like if you tried the original Mosaic, you'd lose quite a bit (or at least lots of pages would work).
But yeah, as far as design, and apparent usability to the user, the browser hasn't changed much.
LosT
Re:10 years... So similiar... (Score:2, Insightful)
Innovation is wonderful, it is also VERY expensive. Why reinvent the wheel? Its a tried and true way of doing things. If you are going to innovate, make it worth while.
Just my humble opinion,
SirLantos
2013? (Score:5, Insightful)
Television
The FUTURE by a pessimist (Score:2, Insightful)
1) Retinal scan, thumb print and DNA test required for authentication.
2) Registration and tracking in national and international databases of governments and corporations. This tracks your access point and methods as well as the data you access and networks traversed.
3) Pay per microsecond based on access to copyright data and use of copyright and patented technologies.
4) All govenments, corporations and point of sale terminals are based on the technology.
5) Hardware locked software that enforces all of the above.
Did the person expect to get any other types of comments?
Re:What if Netscape won? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:10 years... So similiar... (Score:1, Insightful)
Innovations I like (Score:5, Insightful)
More of the same at this rate... (Score:4, Insightful)
We should be using the web more as a resource for storing and retrieving data. Graphics and pretty page layouts are nice and all but if I could, I'd abolish most of it and just look for a summary of the info with a little link saying "Want to know more? Click here..."
Blarg.
It's the data.
It's all about the data.
Information wants to be in your pants.
In Soviet Russia, the pants are in the hot grits.
Bleh.
I still smile... (Score:5, Insightful)
When I remember how excited everybody got with the introducion of the <CENTER> tag
Every damn page became centered overnight.
And the day the <BLINK> tag first made an entry, I wanted to go shoot a large hoarde of web "designers".
Each time a new advance was made, there was always a bunch of people who never learnt the rule - "Just because you can doesn't mean you should".
I think they design Flash web sites now.
My prediction is that they'll still be doing whatever the equivalent is in 2013 :)
.02
cLive ;-)
Re:What if Netscape won? (Score:3, Insightful)
The War Does Wage On (Score:3, Insightful)
For me, I think this is because of a lack of additional features being added to IE. If IE had tabbed browsing, helpful searching features, and good pop-up blocking/whitelisting, I'd probably still be using it. Of course, supporting anything open source and not-Microsoft is always a good thing; but it was the good UI coupled with good features in Phoenix that got me to switch permanently.
Today IE is just the de-facto standard because everyone has it. It clearly is no longer the best, as it was when it 'won' the browser wars.
Re:10 years... So similiar... (Score:5, Insightful)
I could go on, but you get the point. Browsers have progressed tremendously in the last 10 years, but mostly in ways that are not immediately visible to a layman - the progress has mostly been in enabling support for various things, although significant progress has also been made in design and usability.
Re:10 years... So similiar... (Score:3, Insightful)
If the majority of users are still stuck on small-pipe modems in 10 years, most web content will look much like it does now. If instead most users have at least cable/dsl bandwidth (or more, insert your fave buzzword here), then web site designers will be more likely to create content that takes advantage of higher bandwidth. When high-bandwidth is available to most users and more sites are designed to take advantage of it, then browsers (or whatever we call our clients in 10 years) will evolve to take advantage of and display such sites.
Web clients will only really evolve when the average user can take advantage of them. Sure, some consortium and/or company will try to design clients that provide/display richer content than current browsers, but they won't really catch on until users have the bandwidth to handle richer content and site designers decide that it's worth their time to provide richer content.
An app can only be a killer app if the platform (in this case, the info pipe to the end user) is capable enough, and if the task if allows is compelling enough (in this case, the content created by site designers).
Three views of the Web in 2013 (Score:3, Insightful)
One - A task force to regulate web use is created in the face of "international terrorism" and "protecting children" that tries to limit use of the worst porn and shady financial transactions. This system is easily abused is constantly fought over in Congress as the religious Republicans try to use it to apply Christian morality to the nation and the socialist (non-moderate) Democrats try to build it into a system laden with "political correctness" so that "everyone is represented". Technology progresses to allow prototype development of a direct neural-Web link (cyberjack) and carefully developed by private industry for government/corporate use.
Two - Somewhere, a few third world countries sets up free-for-all Web rules like the old Swiss banking rules: anything goes as long as you pay your monthly fee. The UN proves prostrate in attempting to deal with the issue, G-7 (and other) countries declare embargoes after said countries refuse to bar child pron/terrorist moneies/name your sin from their systems. Yet, as Iraq has done, the countries in question are able to use the black market and food aid to their advantage. Web enforcement is attempted via government regulation and quickly becomes a bureaucratic joke, largely like the American Department of Homeland Security is rapidly becoming. New technologies (see above) are carefully developed and medical breakthroughs resulting from them are carefully studied.
Three - technology progresses faster than I anticipate and by 2007 a working prototype of a cyberjack is established. Telecommuting takes on a whole new meaning as the price of the necessary operation comes down like cell phone prices did; over 2 million have the implant by 2011 and Web security must be totally reinvented. As a result, military Web forces using black technology are established, medical breakthroughs concerning how the brain works treat or cure Alzheimers / Parkinson's etc., and "wetware" takes off. The latter is a melding of medicine, neuroscience, electrical engineering, and computer programming designed to allow people to enhance their bodies and minds by implants. It is in the "prototype but very promising" stages by 2013 an awaiting FDA approval for clinical tests.
Re:10 years... So similiar... (Score:4, Insightful)
Only when we're desperate do we resort to Opera, and only when completely desperate (need to view a flash) do we crank up Netscape 4.7.
I use the internet as a library, a resource for information. 99% of the sites I go to can be browsed perfectly as plain text. Keeps it quick, keeps it easy.
So it may not be powered flight any more, but text-mode browsing is still a nice glide most of the time.
YAW.
I'll tell you what innovation we will see. (Score:5, Insightful)
Microsoft has left IE virtually unchanged for quite a while, because they don't need put any effort into it anymore. They have a 70-80% market share that isn't going anywhere quickly so why bother?
IE does not has not moved an inch standards wise since IE 4, so "new" things like XHTML are not supported and only work because IE will support virtually any markup. Just try using a correct XHTML MIME type, or using XHTML DOM (which is read-only in XHTML) or CSS (changes to case rules in XHTML) in IE and it will fail. Mozilla and Opera (and no doubt Konq also) do all the above just fine.
Maybe they will do tabbed browsing to stop people saying it is behind for features, maybe they will gruddingly to pop-up blockers, or maybe they will just keep the ad revenue from MSN.
Until MS update IE the web stays looking just as it does now for 70-80% of users, however innovative the rest of the world gets.
Re:10 years... So similiar... (Score:5, Insightful)
Don't forget Forms. Forms are what really changed the web into an application base rather than a hypertext document reader.
Re:10 years... So similiar... (Score:3, Insightful)
The significant point is that the whole of the Net has never undergone a paradigm shift. Take the browser (Ok, things get more user-friendly, the stuff on the web gets more colourful as u get more bandwidth, but what else did u expect?) or the protocols - there has been no revolution kinda thing. No improvement/changes in the protocols is something fairly significant, what with heaps of research in Computer Science. We are still using a fairly simple protocol like TCP and an even more simple protocol like HTTP on top for most of our file transfers.
If there is something to really marvel at, it is in the fact that the Net has scaled so beautifully. Started off as a tiny academic-defense collabaration, it has grown into a behemoth larger by many orders of magnitude and it must have involved many intelligent decisions for the Net to remain as efficient as it was originally. Perhaps, the co-operative distributed nature of Internet control has a lot to do with this. Any more reasons anyone?
Yes, brilliant, wasn't it? (Score:4, Insightful)
Some other examples: look at Visicalc. All the important ideas were already there. (Well, OK, a few more of them fell into place with Context MBA...)
Or, for that matter, the graphic user interface as it existed in the 1984 Mac.
Or, how about adventure games? Not to knock, say, Myst, but Crowther and Woods' original Colossal Cave really gave us an excellent, totally complete, well-implemented example of the genre right out of the starting gate.
Donning my asbesto suit, I think Microsoft Word falls in the same category. The sad part is that this product has not only not improved, in many ways it has slightly deteriorated... Microsoft has not been a good steward of its own innovation.
All of these examples make me realize just how LONG it's really been since I've experienced the "Wow!" of new possibilities opening up in front of me...
It's got to be said (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Opportunities Lost..... (Score:3, Insightful)
The culture on the net (including the various lists in which I participated) was so strongly counter to the use of the net for business (e.g., people on the Pink Floyd discussion list got flamed for selling things like used albums and paraphernalia to each other) that as the web evolved, it never even occured to me what a scarce resource something like "Drugstore.com" might be. With the benefit of 20/20 hindsight, of course, I kick myself for not realizing that and purchasing every bloody generic domain name I could get my hands (and my meager, graduate student finances) on.
So, the question is, in 10 years what will I be kicking myself for not recognizing now? Damn, I wish I knew.
John
10 Years From Now... (Score:3, Insightful)
2. More of our lives will be stored and recorded on computers, both at home and on the Web. How we sort this out will define how much privacy we have in the future. If we allow corporations or the government to give us an easy, convenient (or invisible) way of storing our preferences and historical files on their servers, we will sacrifice a significant amount of privacy. If we want privacy, we'll need to find a way (and a will) to store and protect our personal data on our personal computers and still have it accessable remotely for use.
3. We will be forced to have a "digital identity" to participate in the mainstream cyberworld in much the same way that you need a picture ID to buy beer. There will still be places that will allow anonymity, but commercial and other "official" transactions will increasingly require something like PKI based on common standards. Of course, dependency on this raises the spectre of identity theft (or erasure) at a level never seen to date, so we must ensure that we still have "human" ways of verifying who we are.
4. Either:
a. Microsoft will have taken over the Internet and are our bases will belong to them, or...
b. Microsoft will have been made obsolete by open standards and formats.
Pick one. I know my preference.
Re:10 years... So similiar... (Score:5, Insightful)
> stayed pretty much unchanged in over 20 years. People keep talking
> about new 3D OS's and stuff but the fact is that that most of the design
> in current OS's is excellent and needs no improvement, browsers included.
Bah, I declare shenanigans on that. There's tons of room for improvement in the windows ui for both power users and normal people.
The Start Menu needs a complete overhaul. It's not intuitive once you open up the "Programs" list. Currently, if you want to find a mail program, you'd have to search through each container, since each container typically refers to a company. Want to write a composition (high school term meaning "text file")? What is your choice of programs for that? Where are they located? Well, on my machine, two of them are in "Accessories" (NotePad and WordPad), one is in "EditPad Lite", one is under "OpenOffice.org 1.0" and one is at the bottom of the list, not in any particular container. That's really inconsistant, and it would confuse users who weren't already totally used to it.
The intuitive way would be to categorize programs. That's how they do it in linux. It's how I categorize my programs in Windows 2000 (though I have to manually hack stuff around, and that breaks the uninstallers a little). Yeah, it's not always easy to put everything into unique categories, but it's a heck of a lot easier than having a flat list of mixed between company names and program names. All the programs for the above task are under either "Applications -> Text Editors" (for simple text editors) or "Office -> Wordprocessors" (for more complex editors). I don't have to hunt through my entire list of programs to find something that does what I want, and I don't have to rely on some default link button on my application bar in the hopes that it'll take me to the best program.
I also like having every executable in the path. This may be a bit power-userish, but it's sometimes a lot faster and easier to hit "ALT-F2" (to bring up the "Run" dialog) and type in "opera" than wasting time reaching for the mouse and hunting out where the link to the program is. I wish that I could type Win-R and "opera" on this Win2k machine, but it would simply take forever to put every single applicable directory into the file path.
Meh, there's a lot of things that could change to substantially improve the usability of the interface for normal users. People still don't understand the difference between a button (one click to run this program) and an icon (two clicks to run this program, unless you have it configured for one click, but then get ready to confuse people who actually got used to double clicking, because they double click everything, even web links!). Many people still don't understand that you can open more than one program without needing to close the current program. These things are not obvious to most people because the system does not make it easy enough to understand. Heck, it was probably a huge mistake to put both the current task list and the shortcut icons on the same bar. If the taskbar were just a vanilla taskbar, then maybe the masses would have taken to the concept of "if I see a name on this bar, that means that the program/application with this name is doing something even though I can't see it". But now, if a button is on the bar, it might be a task that's running, it might be a launchable program that's not running, it might be in that bizarre in-between realm of the system tray, or it might make that list pop up with the "Settings" and the "Programs" and the list of fifteen AOL and MSN related buttons above the "Programs" thing.
Heck, I'm not even touching the power user stuff, like mouse gestures and virtual desktops and soforth. The reason why people don't move to newer interfaces isn't because the interface is excellent. It's because these people spent a decade struggling
Re:10 years... So similiar... (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah, you just said it:
We are still using a fairly simple protocol like TCP and an even more simple protocol like HTTP on top for most of our file transfers.
It's because rather than depsite that that the Internet has grown into such a behemoth.
Simple protocols like TCP/IP and HTTP are easy to implement, can be implemented on a wide range of devices, and don't break very easily (most of the time these protocols are 'broken', it is due to poor implementation rather than the design of the protocol itself.)
Remembering the very first time you saw Mosaic... (Score:5, Insightful)
I actually remember that at one point it was possible to view *ALL* the websites on the planet (tell that to the younger generation today!), and how every single day was very exciting to discover new things (the birth of yahoo, altavista, ebay, and amazon come to mind).
That day I saw mosaic is on my list of days I could never forget, like the challenger explossion, the berlin wall coming down, the wall trade center attacks, and recently the columbia tragedy...
Re:10 years... So similiar... (Score:1, Insightful)
the funny part is that there ARE pages that look as good as today's best pages and are HTML3.0 only.
EVERYTHING in HTML 4.0+ and java,flash,etc.. are 100% useless as it all could be done already. CSS? waste of time. Frames? same waste.
talent-less hacks rely on the latest and greatest.. the true artists and genuises make it with the old stanadards and WORK on every browser.
Re:10 years... So similiar... (Score:4, Insightful)
I'd write this off as a troll, but it's modded insightful so I'll debate.
CSS is an incredibly useful thing. Though it is only for decoration, it's still nice to be able to change fonts on all pages of a website with just a few keystrokes. Sure you could use PHP variables for the same purpose, but why when it's already built in?
I'll admit that frames are usually used poorly, and in such cases take away from a website. However, in some scenarios it's incredibly useful. When I'm working with a database, I often need to switch between tables for whatever reason. The frame on the left side of the window saves lots of time that would be otherwise spent scrolling.
Basically, I'd hate to get rid of features such as CSS and frames, as that would make things I do much harder.