The Web is (Only) 25 Years Old Today
It’s pretty hard to believe that the Internet, as we know it, is only 25 years old. That’s right. Today, March 12th, is officially the birthday of the World Wide Web, and by human standards I feel it’s only now starting to get it’s $#!t together. The infant and toddler years when everything was new are long behind us. The preteen years when no one knew what it’s potential was yet are also done. (I think we can all see the awesome possibilities that the Web holds.) Even the teenage years where everything was a little wild and mature standards were finally being hammered out seem to have come to a close.
Now the Internet is a quarter-century old and as a twenty-something things seem to be progressing nicely. Like most of you, I can remember a time before the World Wide Web. Before I had any idea I’d be doing this for a living. Some would argue that things were simpler then. Having the perspective of someone who was here “before” I would agree to a certain extent. Would I ever go back? Probably not. The advantages far outweigh the problems, IMHO.
I’d also say that the generation behind me (Millennials?), my kids, who’ve never really known life without the Internet, could not even imagine a world where you couldn’t instantly access the answer to any question, at any time of day, pretty much anywhere you are. Go to the library to look something up in an encyclopedia? What are you talking about?
Thank You, Tim Berners-Lee
It’s weird to think, because the Internet is so ubiquitous and it feels like it’s always been here, that the inventor of the Web is someone you could actually meet. Tim Berners-Lee, the man credited with creating the World Wide Web, is an Oxford University graduate who, among other things, works at the Laboratory for Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence (CSAIL) at MIT. He invented the Web in 1989 while working at CERN, the European Particle Physics Laboratory. “I just had to take the hypertext idea and connect it to the Transmission Control Protocol and domain name system ideas and—ta-da!—the World Wide Web“. Sounds simple, right?
Anyway, I’m not going to get all technical and historical in this short article. I just wanted to share this info with you. If you’re interested there are plenty of articles and websites on the subject. I think you can probably find them. 😉