Almost every child nowadays knows about the World Wide Web (WWW), but only 10 years ago this was not so. During the late 1980s and early 1990s Tim Berners-Lee created and developed the World Wide Web as well as its language Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP). Since then much has happened. Computers and the Internet have evolved rapidly, connecting people all over the world together through common interests. It is this connection that Berners-Lee continually brings up in his book, "Weaving the Web", and at one point even states, In an extreme view, the world can be seen as only connections, nothing else.
By writing on a subject so close to him, "Weaving the Web" seems more like a journal of personal accounts than a historical depiction of the World Wide Web. Berners-Lee takes the reader on a journey from his high school years, when he first got the idea for a network that connects global ideas, to his work on creating the WWW to its current status. Berners-Lee does not give the reader a full knowledge of what other progress in this field is going on at the same time, but does attempt to give you some idea by occasionally mentioning some of the new technology available.
One thing this book definitely carries is some of Berners-Lees philosophies. As previously stated, his ideas about connections, the World Wide Web connecting us all into one world not separate nations, are very dominant. Berners-Lee did a wonderful job weaving this philosophy throughout the book by relating it to all of the steps in the creation, evolution, and future of the WWW. This idea of connectivity is a very good and almost utopian concept that has been used in many other communication mediums.
Berners-Lee has a very good story-telling style, and in addition to details he builds emotions so the reader gets a real feel for the immensity and urgency of discovering the WWW. Berners-Lee has written several other books on the WWW and continues his work at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in hopes of bring the WWW to what he sees as its full potential.
The WWW was the most important innovation at the turn of the 21st century. Though it has not fully reached the potential some of its creators saw for it, it has truly changed to world. Business, school, and life in general has not been the same since the widespread use of the WWW. The Internet had been around for decades, but extremely limited in capabilities, until the WWW. A vast world of not only knowledge, but also ideas, is now only seconds away from a large scale amount of people. As with anything good comes some bad. In addition to all the great things the WWW lets people do, it also brings in new forms of crime. So much in first world countries has become computer based that hackers have been able to cause mass corruption from the comfort of their own homes. The WWW from its beginnings, as Berners-Lee said, was abstract, and it is because of this that it can conform, change and evolve. What does not kill the WWW will only make it stronger, and though it can in some instances be considered dangerous there are simple precautions most can make to avoid any problems. The WWW is too great a tool to be ignored, and its positive effects are abundant.
The experience of seeing the Web take off by the grassroots effort of thousands gives me tremendous hope that if we have the individual will, we can collectively make of our world what we want. Tim Bernser-Lee, "Weaving the Web".
Jonelle Thackston is
RU's resident yankee.
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