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Solid – Reshape the web as we know it

solid.inrupt.com

231–240 of 263 posts

Re: Solid – Reshape the web as we know it

#231
post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You should probably ask yourself why you aren't. Because there's no gopher client for macOS. I bet if Google indexed Gopher sites at the outset, Gopher would still be a thing.

Use lynx in your terminal emulator... There is a vibrant international community of people still on gopher, and a lot of us run our own servers. Check out gopher://gopherproject.org There you'll find a getting started file, and other useful things such as a curated site listing (think DMOZ for gopher) called the Gopher Lawn.

Why do people still run gopher servers? To keep some content/discussion open to only a self-selected community?

Re: Solid – Reshape the web as we know it

#232
post #8

applications :( Does anyone else feel nostalgia for the pre-"web app" days of the internet? I'm talking about personal sites on Geocities and web rings built on communities of shared interest. The browser was an application for navigating hyperlinked information. Other applications include email clients, news readers, FTP clients, and IRC clients. You never had to download a megabyte of minified JavaScript just to re…

Even in the very early days of the web, technologists were talking about the browser as a potential platform for applications. This was pretty much always the vision for browsers, it just took a while to figure out exactly how to do it.

But that was where Netscape, a commercial company, and others wanted to take the web. The original idea of the web was to share simple marked up documents, not applications. The image tag was even hotly debated when it was first introduced.

As for figuring out how to turn the web into an app platform, Netscape and Sun might have gotten farther in the 90s if it wasn't for Microsoft. There used to be a saying in the 2000s that MS held back technology for a decade.

Re: Solid – Reshape the web as we know it

#233
post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hope there’s a lot more than that. I mean, they claim that they’ve been working on it for 15 years. “Solid has taken 15 years of development work to finally deliver this.” I probably missed something, but I didn’t see mention of Solid being taken through a standards body, either (even his own one). Web protocols were standardized early and were royalty free, with working prototypes. That helped lead to quick adopti…

To me it looks like as another incarnation of semantic web stuff.

This was my first impression too. Tim and a certain contingency have always wanted that stuff to take off, but the benefits have never been clear enough to make it happen. It's an easy concept to overengineer. The Web took off because it was simple. Anyone could author a rich document in HTML and share it just by sticking it in a folder and passing around the link. The Web now gets harder by the day, so history just might repeat itself sooner or later.

I think Solid needs to start with cleaning up their communications as the whole thing is hard to understand.

Re: Solid – Reshape the web as we know it

#236
post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This may be hint regarding how to authenticate: https://github.com/solid/node-solid-server#testing-solid-loc... > In order to really get a feel for the Solid platform, and to test out solid, you will need the following: > 1. A WebID profile and browser certificate from one of the Solid-compliant identity providers, such as solid.community. EDIT: Seems if you run `solid init` and accept the defaults, it will configure…

I look forward to the day where getting on the internet is like opening a bank account, complete with KYC verification. I will love standing in line at my local DMV and waiting for my WebID profile to be approved.

LOL, no. I want to be able to have internet access anytime anywhere without identity checks, verification, or even anyone knowing exactly who I am. What is legal speech today is heretical "call the death squad" speech tomorrow.

Re: Solid – Reshape the web as we know it

#237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel the exact same way about writing. How much human suffering has been caused by people's ability to just read and write down anything whenever they want? There is zero accountability! Heck, nowadays, I can even make graphics on a computer and then walk into Staples and print them out on official-looking, high quality paper. And they even have the gall let me pay anonymously in cash! In the good old days, only th…

I just had flash backs of Reddit...

It's refreshing to see people refer to reddit in the past tense, maybe its finally dying.

Re: Solid – Reshape the web as we know it

#238

I hat websites like this: after reading for 3 minutes I learned that Solid is revolutionary, game changing and whatnot, but I have aboslutely no idea what it is. Very frustrating experience.

Yes indeed. Marketing buzzwords before any kind of substance.

Re: Solid – Reshape the web as we know it

#240
So it's Diaspora meets a CMS? I thinking the issue here will be the chicken and egg problem - how do you bootstrap something like this without a killer app to drive adoption? After a certain critical mass adopts a system like that, all web applications start getting pressured toward supporting it too, but how do you ever build that critical mass to begin with? The whole point of the system is to prevent vendor lock-in, so what's the vendor's incentive to help make it popular?
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