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The Fathers of the Internet Urge Today’s Software Engineers to Reinvent the Web

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Re: The Fathers of the Internet Urge Today’s Software Engineers to Reinvent the Web

#11

Post by beachstartup »

tsunamifury wrote: post #5
wolfgke wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The web was based on a Western educational reference model In what sense is the web based on a Western educational reference model?

Storing knowledge in written semistatic documents to be referenced is for the most part a higher education model. The vast majority of the planet stores knowledge in people and references it via direct communications.

> The vast majority of the planet stores knowledge in people and references it via direct communications.

i'm sorry, but this is complete nonsense based on some kind of ignorant, fantastical misunderstanding of how non-western people live. in fact it's pretty damn offensive if you really think about it.

let me give you a hint: east and southeast asia, india, middle east/northern africa have all been pretty big fans of writing stuff down for a while now, and represent well over half the world's population. you're telling me these people don't read books or go online?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_literacy_...

"The global literacy rate for all people aged 15 and above is 86.3%. The global literacy rate for all males is 90.0% and the rate for all females is 82.7%."

Re: The Fathers of the Internet Urge Today’s Software Engineers to Reinvent the Web

#12

Post by dang »

Before posting something dismissive about this, please remember how easy it would have been to dismiss the internet and the web themselves as things that couldn't ever happen, nice visions but impossible in the real world, etc. etc. and so on.

When the people who actually made these things talk about what needs making next, we should hear them with an open mind, not rush to think of objections.

Re: The Fathers of the Internet Urge Today’s Software Engineers to Reinvent the Web

#13

Post by tsunamifury »

pavlov wrote: post #8
josteink wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So basically when someone says the web needs to reinvented, you object and in the same breath conflate the web with the internet as a whole? Or am I missing something?

I get the feeling that tsunamifury is suggesting that chat, rather than a document browser, ought to be the metaphor for the end-user Internet -- that's what "vast majority of the planet stores knowledge in people and references it via direct communications" seems to be alluding to. Chat interfaces are certainly all the rage right now. Having a properly threaded log of your interactions with a service provider is one…

Could easily be pushed based streaming interface of any design. Chat is the most understandable transitional model.

Re: The Fathers of the Internet Urge Today’s Software Engineers to Reinvent the Web

#14

Post by drdaeman »

tsunamifury wrote: post #3

Most of these guys are a disconnected from where the global market is going and are proposing preposterous ideas for west coast tech scenes own problems. The web was based on a Western educational reference model that is not the normal mode for 3/4ths of the planet. The new web would need to be pushed based, not pull based. It would need to be need to be instantly authorable and aware of people and devices, Not docum…

Ahem. Don't we have this already? It's just called "instant messaging" (because name "world wide web" is already occupied for the term describing a system of interlinked documents).

Push-based, aware of devices (and, to the extent possible, of people), based on "messages" rather than "documents". This stuff works great for the latest gossip. The problem is, it doesn't work well for information storage and subsequent (on-demand) retrieval, sans the "recent messages" case. Every instant messaging archival system I've heard of is basically pull- and document- based stuff.

I guess query + subsequent retrieval (pull) can be decoupled into two pushes (push "hey, anyone has this book?" + push "I heard you've asked for this book, here you go") - an interesting idea that some distributed networks already do. But this is still based on concept of documents and content-based addressing...

Re: The Fathers of the Internet Urge Today’s Software Engineers to Reinvent the Web

#15

Post by walrus01 »

tsunamifury wrote: post #5
wolfgke wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The web was based on a Western educational reference model In what sense is the web based on a Western educational reference model?

Storing knowledge in written semistatic documents to be referenced is for the most part a higher education model. The vast majority of the planet stores knowledge in people and references it via direct communications.

I am 99% certain you are just trolling, but you advocate replacing written technical documents and written science with oral tradition? Riiiiighhttt......

Re: The Fathers of the Internet Urge Today’s Software Engineers to Reinvent the Web

#16

Post by nxzero »

tootie wrote: post #7

Their goals seem at odds with the economic incentives in the entire developed world. It's a beautiful dream, but we're not sufficiently civilized to make it reality.

>> "we're not sufficiently civilized to make it reality."

To me, the opposite is true, society has become too civilized. True change would require risks that the majority of Internet users would see as too risky, unnecessary, and a threat to stability & safety.

Re: The Fathers of the Internet Urge Today’s Software Engineers to Reinvent the Web

#18

Post by nxzero »

dang wrote: post #12

Before posting something dismissive about this, please remember how easy it would have been to dismiss the internet and the web themselves as things that couldn't ever happen, nice visions but impossible in the real world, etc. etc. and so on. When the people who actually made these things talk about what needs making next, we should hear them with an open mind, not rush to think of objections.

Not sure it's that, but that the founders had a bit of luck, and to believe any future efforts would not require luck would be foolish in my opinion.
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