Rating:  - Really interesting, but lacks TCP/IP background information
A most interesting history/sociology of the Web, the book is well written and very accessible if a little "chatty". For the serious minded it gives us acronyms and directions to watch out for. I feel there are a couple of gaps. I would have welcomed more on the TCP/IP protocol stack, how this foundation was established, how secure it is, and likely future directions plus implications for the Web. I also feel the author skipped over the period in Spring 1995 when ISPs' ability to dynamically allocate dot addresses opened up the Web to those of us who were mystified by the TCP/IP stack. This appeared to lead to the explosive success of the Web among ordinary folk.
Rating:  - a bit to techie-oriented
I felt this was a fairly interesting account, but hardly expected such a specifically (and laborious) technical blueprint, of the development environments, computer languages etc. etc. used in the creation of the WWW. I was hoping for a bit more of a broader brush painted in this area (not half of the book!)... Worth reading only for the types of people that are not bored silly by this stuff... 2.5 stars
Rating: - A well told tale of how it all began
This is a charming book, written well and modestly by the inventor of the World Wide Web. The first part of the book, as Berners-Lee explains how the disparate parts came together, is especially fascinating. The second half provides Berners-Lee with an opportunity to describe his vision for the web. Whether you agree with him or not, he certainly has earned the right to express his opinions and he does it well.
A great companion to this book is "Where Wizards Stay Up Late: The Origin of the Internet," by Katie Hafner and Matthew Lyon. Taken together you've got a history of what's changing history: the Internet and the World Wide Web.
Rating: - Offers great perspective on the Web
This book is a must-read for anyone interested in the historical antecedents of the World Wide Web. I'm sure only a very small fraction of the millions using the Web today realize it's essentially an outgrowth of the vision of one man. Here, you get an account penned by the man himself of what he was thinking when he first conjured the Web and his thoughts on its future.
Overall, the book is a very engaging read, and its best feature is the insight it provides into the principles that Tim Berners-Lee had in mind during the Web's conception. Though it seems to have been commandeered by mass-marketers, the Web has its roots in the ideals of de-centralized and democratic information sharing. And as long as there are people like Tim Berners-Lee involved who are inspired at least as much by integrity and character as by profit motive, the Web has every chance to fulfill that promise.
I would have rated the book 5 stars, but at times the text slips a bit in editing, and it's probably less accessible than it could be to the layperson. Despite that, the book is excellent, and everyone who has ever typed www into a browser should give it a look.
After reading this book, grab a copy of "Where Wizards Stay Up Late" by Katie Hafner and Matthew Lyon for a great history of the Internet.
Rating:  - Unputdownable, but where's the hypertext version?
After browsing umpteen "History of the web" pages, its refreshing to get it from the man himself.
Primarily, this book is a personal statement, and should be evaluated as one.It has the flavour of a travelogue with the descriptions of the bylanes and their interesting denizens who put in their mite to make this journey happen.However, it doesnt seem to be written with the intention to "attract"; its more of a "how and why i did this" type.As such, it falls outside the "Inventing the Web for dummies" class, which probably explains the lack of pictures, cute icons and sidebars (There is however, a graph on the cover which i'd love to look at fully!).Throughout the book runs a chain(web?) of incidents and decisions that are easily construed as examples of modesty, altrusim and general magnanimity on TBL's part (eg, not wanting to name the web as TIM,happiness at the web protocols being made public, tolerance of big companys' ideas of total control,etc) but (which I suspect) are only a result of common sense reasoning to get the whole thing going the way he wanted it to. I suppose the only way you could "own" the web was to give it away! Also refreshing is the lack of derison for the commercial side of the web.
For a book with such an inward perspective, however, it holds a lot for every reader.The everyday web buff now knows how it happened - blow by blow.The corporate reader now has something to glean a success story from and a starting point to tommorow's web technologies - which is enough justification for promoting this book as something more than just desktop decoration and board meeting small talk.
The programmer (IMHO) is the person to benefit the most , however. The book reads like trace of some meandering execution thread which TBL has (finally) documented. Now we know how it worked.And why. We also now know that "view source" was something that shouldnt have been.Also that "put" should have been right there with "get".And the link to the future -the chapters on the "Semantic web"- seem to be just the next iteration of what is now the web. While OMG and others talk of creating the object web , here is TBL plotting to achieve that and more with his seemingly simple ideas.Of course, all this is not in the book. Its on the w3c site. Which is suspect is where the rest of this book is - in bits and pieces. Or chunks of information if you will, linked inexhorably to each other. Which is why i'm looking for the hypertext version of this book.
An aside on some other reviews: 1]ironically, joncolis@yahoo.com is able to comment on this book *thro the web*. 2]i was about to rush to point out to him that TBL could have probably made a lot more money with his idea by starting a company (or some such "control organization") than writing a book about it, but then probably the web wouldnt be what it is if it were run in that way.
|
