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Is Today's Web Still 'the Web'?
snydeq writes "Fatal Exception's Neil McAllister raises questions regarding the transforming nature of the Web now that Tim Berners-Lee's early vision has been supplanted by today's much more complex model. AJAX, Google Web Toolkit, Flash and Silverlight all have McAllister asking, 'Is [the Web] still the Web if you can't navigate directly to specific content? Is it still the Web if the content can't be indexed and searched? Is it still the Web if you can only view the application on certain clients or devices? Is it still the Web if you can't view source?' Such questions bely a much bigger question for Web developers, McAllister writes. If today's RIAs no longer resemble the 'Web,' then should we be shoehorning these apps into the Web's infrastructure, or is the problem that the client platforms simply aren't evolving fast enough to meet our needs?" If the point of 'The Web' is to allow direct links between any 2 points, is today's web something entirely different?
As long as there is a central place for me to go download my midget porn, the web will live on.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
The point of a Web is to make one, wait for visitors, catch them, and then eat them. It doesn't really matter what the visitor does once it gets in the web. It's just a matter of the spider finishing the deal.
-516
No, that would be the Internet. It's very important not to confuse the two.
You have two options:
1) Pages that provides information
2) Fluff
99.9% of the sites that provide information are static text pages with a bit of html mark up and most of the rest is fluff.
From a technical perspective, one that is concerned with transfer protocols and knows what "http" "CSS" "ISP" and "FTP" stand for and why it matters, I suppose that the current uses of our series of tubes no longer fits that rudimentary definition of The Web.
.Com-ing, so far as they know, they're using the web. (Don't SMSs travel on teh internets?)
From my mother's perspective, my boss's perspective, and 90% of people who are not concerned about the actual way data is transferred, it will be The Web until something supplants it on a wholesale basis. It doesn't matter if they think they're Surfing, Instant Messaging, FTPing, AJAXing, or
So it depends. Given our forum, yes, the web is probably not the same as it was. For the majority, they don't know the difference.
So the question is, could we continue to have this interoperability if we more frequently used different protocols, technologies, and backbones for different uses? (eg. if we took AJAX/online apps off the "Web" and put them on their own infrastructure to keep the "Web" fully indexable/searchable)
The more mainstream the web becomes, the more bullshit we have to sort through... the more useless it becomes. There used to be a banner ad. Now there's a banner, links on the left, links on the right, popups, flash over the actual text, sound, video, and 10x as many pages all with the same shit to click through just to get the same content. And, we're already hearing about ISPs adding their own shit to our shitty internet experience.
It doesn't make any fucking sense that an article that could be entirely scrolled through takes 27 clicks to read.. It doesn't make any fucking sense that clicking 'yes' one time on the wrong thing can allow malicious software to install itself (that is your fault, microsoft). It doesn't make any fucking sense that our own damn web clients allow the developer to disable right-click on a page. It doesn't make any fucking sense that I have to watch a 30-second advertisement to watch a 10-second video clip.
The web is quickly turning into television - a bunch of stupid avertisements created by stupid people geared for stupid consumers. The web is still way better than anything else we got.
--- We need more Ron Paul!
Mod parent up. In that sense, the Web is more true to it's name than it ever was. And there's alot more spiders now.
Of course I didn't RTFA... why would I do that? You really are new here aren't you? Don't let my UID fool you.
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In the sites I visit, it's still pretty rare to see content presented in flash that would more appropriately be presented in html. I assume this is because people want to get indexed by google and have a high page rank, and they know they won't get indexed if it's in flash. If that's the case, then it's actually a bad thing that google is going to start indexing flash content.
As far as silverlight, what are the chances that it will succeed? I'm optimistic that it will fail. Although Windows has a high market share, especially in the US, IE doesn't have anywhere near that market share. There are entire countries in Europe where Firefox is the majority browser. I don't see how any web developer could commit themselves to silverlight when it means locking out so many users.
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Well I always thought that the computers - and computer networks - networked together were the internet and "the web" was a collection of applications that ran over the internet. Specifically those associated with web browsers. For instance, I don't think most people refer to sending email as using the web.
my insights may be modded Funny, but at least some of my jokes are modded Insightful
That is, with 238% more lolcats, buttsecks, and social networking sites
For instance, I don't think most people refer to sending email as using the web.
You must not get out much.
Acoustic and electric guitars are fundamentally different, but an electric guitar is still a guitar to a guitarist. Seems to me that we're in the electric guitar age of the web now.
I dream of a better world... one in which chickens can cross roads without their motives being questioned.
If you're going to nitpick, probably a good idea to learn about the difference between HTML and HTTP first, eh?
When did we ever just have 1 link between 2 points? It's always been complex, unsettled, and a bit anarchistic. This is just the newest facet of it.
The change in the internet is continuous. This is not something different, this is the way it always has been.
Check out my sysadmin blog!
We have a winner. AJAX applications do not "break the web". They create richer documents and points of interest on the web. You can still link from one HTML application to the next, so the hypertext functionality is not lost.
What *is* a challenge is to find good methods of indexing these richer HTML applications for purposes of searching, indexing, and cataloging. Since these applications can pull and display information in a variety of ways, search engines are presented with a challenge when they treat the application as a simple textual document.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
Complex porn? You mean like porn with things like sqrt(-boobs)?
Every time you use the phrase "fixed that for you," God makes you look like a tool.
If you mod me Overrated, you are admitting that you have no penis.
You should have been modded insightful rather than funny because to most people that is what and how the Internet works. Not just porn, but as long as they can go get whatever it is that they like, the Internet is working and they are happy with it. Few users of the Internet think about whether they are on the WWW or the Internet. To them they are the same thing. Some of us remember their first viewing of Mosaic. We remember the Internet before the widespread use of HTML.
As long as we can go online and get the information that we want for free, the Internet will be alive, at least as it is understood to be so by most of it's users. It doesn't matter if that is porn or the latest crap from faux news, or blueprints for the moon lander or thesis papers for last years PhD candidates in robotics theory.
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Does this really matter at all? For anything?
theres still more porn on the inter tubes than one can shake a stick at
When referencing porn, could you PLEASE choose a better expression?
Programmer: an ingenious device that converts caffeine into code.
The web is an interconnected collection of documents. You're confusing the web with the internet.
The web is being destroyed because it's being monetized. To monetize something is to assert control over it, then exploit that control. This is the antithesis of what made the web powerful in the first place.
Hell, look at Google. "Organize the worlds information" was a very lofty goal. What did they do once they got there? They sell the right to lead users away from the information they're looking for towards professionally written propaganda, and they're given a disgusting amount of power and influence as a reward.
As far as I'm concerned, the promise of the web died when we decided there wasn't anything wrong with giving citizens dynamic IPs that they can't use to self-publish and selling those IPs to large corporate interests.
Big Money wanted the Internet to be a Television, and lazy short-sighted sheep rolled over and let it happen. It's old news, and discussing the technical particulars this late in the game is kind of irrelevant.
-1 Uncomfortable Truth
God is not required for that step. :-P
Cheers
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
Have you ever seen a linear spider web?
Yes. And the spider landed right on my keyboard as it came down, too.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
...and to understand that FTP resources are also part of the web.
According to W3C, the web is "the universe of network-accessible information, the embodiment of human knowledge."
Some of the stuff under question is applications for using information, not information itself, and thus isn't really part of the "web" in that sense. A bunch more - perhaps the majority - neither contains nor uses actual information, except in the information-theoretic sense in which noise has more "information" than signal...
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You cannot wash away blood with blood
I suppose you'd like to only visit sites coded in HTML?
YMBNH.
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
You're going to need some real porn to go with that. As it stands, it's just imaginary.
my insights may be modded Funny, but at least some of my jokes are modded Insightful
The people I deal with have the reverse problem: Internet Explorer* is "The Internet". Outlook (or even worse, OE) is "The Email", which is completely separate from "The Internet". Even if they learn to use a webmail service, they assume that Internet Explorer magically takes them off of "The Internet" and on to "The Email".
If you asked them what "the Web" is, they'd look confused for a minute, then say "oh, that's The Internet."
*And, of course, "The Internet" is disconnected from their computer whenever they close Internet Explorer.
How can I believe you when you tell me what I don't want to hear?
Except for 12 steps -- God (or a reasonable facsimile) is a requirement there. :-P
Cheers
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
Web, Internet, Web 2.0 whatever. Nobody fathomed what it would become when it first started and its hard to predict what it will evolve into.
Life is about being a Phoenix!
The worst part is, here in Québec people keep calling them "Site internet" because they seem to fear the english word "Web" in "Site Web".
Stupid Office de la langue française,
No, that would be the Internet. It's very important not to confuse the two.
No, that would be MSN, AOL, Yahoo, Google, etc. The Internet was a neat idea but has a crappy ad campaign.
God gets mod points? We're screeeewed!
If you haven't been down-modded lately, you aren't trying.
Sacred cows make the best hamburger.
My users might have yours beat....at least in one area. If I say "Internet Explorer", their eyes glaze over. I have to call it "The Blue E".
One user impressed me, by saying he quit using Microsoft products. Then he explained that he was using "Foxfire for XP".
The good news is that Web sites are at Internet sites. Internet site isn't strictly a wrong word, it just also applies to sites that serve only FTP, but no HTTP, and so forth. It's just a less specific term.
Interconnected computers is a "network". I have a network at home. The "topology" is the picture that these make when connected. That is, 5 computers are connected in a "star topology". 3 more in a "star topology", and there is a "bus topology" connecting the two "stars".
In turn, this network is connected to a cable modem, which connects this ENTIRE network to other networks. How? We are not sure of the topology, so we draw it as a "cloud".
This "network of networks" is the "internet".
Nothing to do with the data. That would be defined by public or private protocols. The "web" is defined as clients using servers with "http" protocol over "tcp/ip". It also defines a "URL" to allow linking from one server to itself or another, thus implementing hypertext documents.
Very useful stuff. But it only passes encoded data. Not food, water, or hygiene products. So I don't get where you get "need". It also doesn't solve problems. By facilitating information flow, the internet may provide you with data to solve a problem, but it's only data.
You are right -- the internet is not lynx and gopher. It is simply the idea that routing can be pushed to the edge, allowing networks to be trivially connected, and that the result would be useful.
In a sense, it is a fractal.
At the beginning I mentioned that I have two networks, each in a star topology, connected by a bus. That bus is the internet. Remember, the internet backbone started as a 56k link.
For convenience, we "users" of the internet allow certain functions to become part of the bedrock. As yet the "web" isn't there. What is there? ip, tcp, udp, dns, and routing protocols.
After all, we need a lingua franca; and dns is just too convenient to give us. Maybe the "web" will join in, but not until it loses bloat (as a hypertext publication method, not an application carrier).
As an example, I give you telnet. Once a noble and (considered) indispensable part of the "internet", it is now deceased. RIP.
Just another "Cubible(sic) Joe" 2 17 3061
We have a winner. AJAX applications do not "break the web". They create richer documents and points of interest on the web. You can still link from one HTML application to the next, so the hypertext functionality is not lost.
Not always. There are LOTS of sites on the web that you can not link to a specific page of information. Any attempt to try just links you to a home page which might be 40 clicks away from the information you want to link to.
Hypertext is almost useless if I can only link to the front door of an application or website.
search engines are presented with a challenge
Not just search engines. Regular people looking to send a link to their parents, or including one on their blog or website find it challenging too...
you used to be able to just send a link, now its... send a link to a starting page with instructions... ok, go there, then click enter, halfway down hit search, enter Q44425466, then submit, then 2/3rds of the way down click download, then 'scroll' through the license and tick of 'Accept', then 'Download', then choose a mirror, then uncheck 'install yahoo toolbar', and 'send me the newsletter', then 'download', and it should start.
That pile of needless bullshit navigation is precisely what hypertext was supposed to allow you to avoid.
Who on Earth modded the "fixed it for you" asshole "Informative"? The answers to both our questions are no doubt similar.
If you mod me Overrated, you are admitting that you have no penis.
"FoxFire" is a pet peeve of mine for some reason. I set up my father-in-law's computer with FireFox (for increased security over IE and since I think it's just a better browser overall) and he insists on calling it "FoxFire." No matter how many times I correct him, he keeps mangling the name.
Of course, he also talks about sending us an "e-mail" while using Instant Messenger. When I try to correct him, he says "well, it's all the same." (*MUST... KEEP... FROM... LECTURING... FATHER-IN-LAW... ABOUT WHY THEY AREN'T!*)
Then again, I'm used to this sort of thing. Years back, I had a tape drive that I used to back up my system. (It used the parallel port to give you an idea of how long ago this was.) A friend of mine had a virus infection and asked to borrow the tape drive and a spare tape. My father insisted that I couldn't do this because the virus would infect the tape drive (not the tape, but the drive itself) and then spread to my computer. No amount of arguing dented his "absolute knowledge" that this is what would happen. Of course, since the drive was my own, bought with my own money, he couldn't stop me and I gave it to my friend to use. Oddly enough, I didn't get infected by the virus via the hardware transfer.
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
God gets mod points? We're screeeewed!
Yeah; he's the only person who can mod something up to +6 or down to -2 ("Heretical").
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sqrt(-boobs) == eromanga/cartoon porn.
log(boobs) == scheisseporn/cleveland steamer.
ln(boobs) == amateur scheisseporn/cleveland steamer.
(boobs)^2 == lesbian porn.
1/(boobs) == acrobatic porn.
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
Fixé ça pour vous.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Actually the name is "Office de la langue française", so me saying "stupid Office de la langue française" is right.
I know you were trying to be funny, but you changed their name ("office" is in french so you can't translate it to "bureau"), so it doesn't work like you intended. :p
Flash in applications can provide better UI animations and better user experiences. In the latest site I worked on, sometimes the user clicked something and something on the page would smoothly move. This effect could be used to draw a user's eye to the next step of the process, making the app less confusing. Just because UI usability often involves colors and animations rather than adding new content doesn't make it fluff, or worthless. It is important.
If your application needs all that, do us all a favor and provide a binary to download. Native applications are always better than flash crap.
That's not a fluffy reason for moving away from AJAX, and can allow you to provide richer, or even more, content because development time is shortened.
Moving away from AJAX is good, but if you're moving towards flash you're going in the wrong direction.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
and, sadly, what most hosts and advertising revenue driven sites don't want you to be able to avoid.
The more ads they can shove in your way and get you to accidentally click.. the more malware they can infect your computer with.. the more money they make.
VLC FOR MAC IS DYING! IF YOU DEVELOP, PLEASE SAVE IT!!
And lord knows I like shaking my stick at it.
to do web applications.
For example, Google Maps (and Street View) allows you to get a direct url for exactly the area you're viewing at the moment. I can give you, for example, a direct link to a street level view of a museum in Chicago or a park in Atlanta or the Golden Gate Bridge. Even though you got to them by searching, panning, and scrolling.
Most apps don't bother letting you pass these sorts of parameters in, which is unfortunate. But it's certainly possible to encode all of this in a URL (and even, potentially, publish an API so that other services can deep link into them) if the developer has enough foresight. Few do.
The US free market: two halves of a government-granted duopoly are free to set the market price.
And when Internet Explorer crashes, the whole Internet dies (temporarily) along with it. I have heard people say things like this, they must be scared shitless at the effect they can have.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it