Customer Reviews

Weaving the Web : The Original Design and Ultimate Destiny of the World Wide Web by its Inventor

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3 star:		(8)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Weaving The Web is a wonderful blending of three distinct subjects: the history of the World Wide Web, an astute analysis of the web's "current" state, that is, where it stands in the middle of 1999, and where it's founder believes and thinks it is headed. It is difficult to believe the accuracy of Berners-Lee's vision of what the web could be in the time that the web was just a dream, and how he worked to achieve it. He also dispels the common belief that he either disdains the accumulation of wealth that could have been his had he chosen a different path, or that he envies those individuals who have made millions (or billions) by building on the web's humble beginnings. He also does not begrudge the commercialization over the web, as many academics did at the time when the web was viewed primarily as a medium for the free sharing of ideas and information.

Berners-Lee talks in depth about the social implications of technology, and indeed the World Wide Web is a social beast as much as it is a technological one. He does separate, however, the duties of bodies like the W3C whose sole purpose is to facilitate and strengthen the standards and protocols that are providing new richness and robustness to the web. This is clearly highlighted in his discussion of PICS, which allows for creation of rules that can facilitate filtering of objectionable material on the web. Berners-Lee makes the clear distinction between those who create the PICS technology, and those who decide how it will be implemented.

It is evident from this book that Berners-Lee is far from finished in his duties. While not as radical as the initial concept of the World-Wide Web must have been in its time, his discussion of security, privacy, and collaboration and how they can and should be implemented on the web should be read by anyone who wants to be a player in Cyberspace. Berners-Lee does not hold a monopoly on great ideas for the web, but he clearly has a grasp on the balance and understanding of both the technology as well as its place in society that others would be well served to strive for.

I have heard so many stories of the beginnings of the web, but for the first time, here is how it really happened. Tim Berners-Lee, the man who developed the 'World Wide Web' now tells the tale of how all this hypertext-hoopla began.

Berners-Lee writes in plain english, allowing non-programmers to share in his vision and goals for a universal (or should that be uniform?) way to share information across the internet. Especially interesting is the history of the browser market itself, without all the 'browser-war' hype.

Best of all, this book does not read like a technical specification -- but is full of warmth and humor as we see Berners-Lee bring his brainchild to light.

I read "Where Wizards Stay Up Late: the Origins of the Internet" by Katie Hafner and Matthew Lyon, and desperately wished someone would do similar justice to the history of the web. Not only has someone now done just that, but that someone happens to be the inventor of the web! What more could you ask for?

This is an amazing account of how the Web came to be by the man who pulled together the ideas of many others to create it. Considering how much his invention has changed the world, he is incredibly humble in telling his story. Very easy and fast read. Also provides a good background knowledge of the technical side for those interested in creating for the Web. Which, as he states over and over again, was one of the main reasons he created it; so people from anywhere, no matter who they were, could reach other people and share information. I found the technical information very easily absorbed and easy to understand. But I want to point out this is NOT a techy, how-to manual, full of jargon. Merely one man's story and an overview of the technology and ideas surrounding him. Highly recommend to anyone.

When I first ventured out onto the Web in 1994, little did I know that just a few years later I'd have the opportunity to meet and work with the man who's ideas put this new virtual world into motion. But there I was, at a W3C Advisory Committee meeting in San Jose, CA (Jan. 1998), sitting elbow to elbow with Berners-Lee at lunch, very much star-struck.

Today, nearly three years later, I've had the pleasure to know a little bit more about Tim Berners-Lee the man, and to see him in action at various W3C meetings and conferences. Reserved, self-effacing, and even shy, you're still able to look into his eyes and see the gears turning exponentially faster than the ideas can possibly come out of his mouth, though he does try -- often being reminded to slow down so that his comments can be digested by the rest of us. Though we disagree occasionally (primarily about the universal application and suitability of namespaces), I very much respect his guidance and vision.

Reading Weaving the Web was enlightening in several aspects: it filled in the holes in my knowledge obtained by talking with Tim, reading other historical works, and speaking with those who also helped make the Web what it is today. The most valuable aspect is the realization that if one truly believes in something and perseveres in their that a good idea can become more than that, it can become something that changes the lives of us all.

I've been online since 94, build sites, and teach web-related classes. This book is a wonderful testament to the *philosophy* of universal access -- freedom from hardware and software handcuffs that continue to plague general computing today.

We (USA) don't stand for a lack of interoperability in other infrastructure products (phone, fax, gasoline, railroads, electricity, TV signals, etc). Why should we with computing systems?

TBL says we don't have to. And thanks to him today, on the WWW, we don't.

So it lacks background on TCP/IP. So what? This isn't a "technical" book. It's a history book; a philosophical treatise. One man's vision of technology as a community building tool.

Where are we going? Where *should* we be going with this technology? How private is private - and why should you care? The second half of the book should be mandatory reading for all regulators and elected officials.

"Weaving the Web" gives the overwhelming impression that Tim Berners-Lee is basically a Regular Guy who was in exactly the right place at the right time. He comes across as a relentlessly enlightened person, beneficent toward all, earnest to the point of humorlessness.

The book tells the story of the past and present of the Web, and Berners-Lee's ideas about the future, at a very high level. It's not a Techie's History of the Web; there are a few annoying technical gaffes, and not much about the bits and bytes. I was surprised to read some non-technical reviewers opine that it was *too* technical. No pleasing everyone, I guess!

I'm not convinced by Berners-Lee's idea that, if only we hook everything together well enough, we will then be able to make computers that understand, that reason, that figure stuff out for us. I think the hooking-together is the easy part, and we'll still be far from real understanding. On the other hand, maybe I would have been a skeptic back in 1989, too, when he was telling people about this crazy thing called the World Wide Web... *8)

Berners-Lee has created something so universal that 50 years from now we won't even remember it had an inventor. Who can remember the inventor of television or radio?

The goodness of the man shines through. He wants to make the world a better place and he has already. He has a pespective on it all, placing the birth of his first child above his amazing technical achievement. This book is a good read, for those of us who used Mosaic and those who never heard of Windows 3.1.

I would compare Berners-Lee to Gandhi, who achieved more through forceful ideas than by brute intimidation. The greatest idea is the openness of HTML. Read and learn why this works where other new ideas have failed.

Brian Black

I have mixed feelings about this book. On the one hand, Berners-Lee has written a book that not only describes the invention and evolution of the Web, but also inspires commitment to high principles and deep introspection. Berners-Lee is clearly an intellect of the highest caliber, and his commitment to democratic principles in developing the Web is, to me, profoundly admirable. On the other hand, the author seems to labor under the common curse of most software engineers - an inability to clearly communicate ideas and concepts to the non-specialist. Though he tries in words to communicate these concepts, I believe that, overall, his attempt fails unless the reader first has some exposure to, and familiarity with the world-wide Web - an unacceptable pre-requisite for a book directed at the non-specialist.

The really unfortunate thing about this is that it does not need to be so. For example, the book has no figures and no tables (though it does have a glossary of the hundreds of acronyms used and a good index). A few well-designed figures and summary tables would help a great deal to unify concepts that are just plain fuzzy and awkward when described with words alone. If you've ever seen a Web site and hypertext you can pretty well follow along with the written descriptions, but how much more helpful it would have been to have a few (color) pictures illustrating what a well-constructed Web site with hyper text looks like.

The book does have its fine points. It is a first-hand look at how the Web came into existence, and how it is continuing to evolve today. It also explains efforts to make the Web more valuable. For example, my experience with the Web indicates that it has not only enabled the exchange of accurate, timely, and useful information, but also the dissemination of ignorance, intolerance, and stupidity. Not only has it facilitated these things, it has made it possible for them to "dress up" and look as legitimate as the best peer-review science journal. The unfortunate fact is that anyone with a few thousand dollars and the proper disposition can setup a Web site and say anything they want. This certainly facilitates democratic principles, and I'm not suggesting a central authority that practices censorship by any means, but the unfortunate fact is that it results in an information structure where virtually everything is suspect.

Berners-Lee hints at solutions to this problem through what he calls a "Web of Trust" in which people establish associations on the Web much as they do in real life, where certain associations bring trust, while others bring suspicion. For example, when I pick up a technical book by Wylie, I tend to trust the content because of my experience with other books by this publisher. I make similar associations with some authors, journals, newsmagazines, etc. Development of processes and standards to support this "Web of Trust" will go a long way toward improving the utility of the worldwide Web.

Anther problem I've found with the Web is that there are no acceptable search engines. Current search engines (including the butler) are clumsy things that act like they are trying to understand what you are asking for, but really haven't a clue. Work in progress should enable search engines to actually act intelligently, and provide far greater utility. The author describes some of the possibilities in this arena as well, and sheds some light on what we might expect to see in the future.

Every politician involved in writing legislation associated with the Web should read this book if, for no other reason, than to understand the consequences of attempts to censor information. Burners-Lee offers several anecdotal stories that illustrate the complexity of the Web and how attempts to censor can have unintended consequences. The one I like best regards a Christian fundamentalist group that lobbied for tools that would allow them and others to block sites they considered to be pornographic. As it turned out, other groups had used similar tools to block the fundamentalists' Web site because they considered it to be unacceptable to children owning to the white supremacist and anti-gay propaganda carried there. The example hit home with two important facts about censorship and the Web: First, no single person can decide for everyone what is unacceptable and offensive - big brother censorship is totally unacceptable. Second, the technical tools exist for people to censor themselves and/or their children by blocking certain sites. What we as a society should do, therefore, is to maintain our commitment to democratic principles and freedom of expression while providing the proper technical tools to ensure that parents and individuals continue to have control over what and whom they wish to associate.

There is also a good discussion about issues relating to privacy. Clearly, the Europeans are far ahead of Americans in this area. It seems odd that so many Americans seem oblivious and unconcerned about personal information being acquired about them over the Internet, and that our government has done so little to protect personal privacy.

One unifying theme comes through this book - the Web is not a "thing," it is a space. This space is not controlled by a central authority, but is built upon the principles of individual freedom of expression. Berners-Lee's personal commitment to these ideals is the real reason the Web exists today.

Written in a conversational style, Weaving the Web provides a first hand account of the people and personalities behind the creation of the WWW. In addition to Berners-Lee's account of how the web was created, he provides his thought-provoking vision of the "web of the future." The book provides an interesting insight into Berners-Lee, himself. It is interesting to understand his motivations in creating the WWW and how he and others interacted during the emergence of this new medium - such as those at the University of Illinois (Marc Andreesen etc..).

Another reason why this book so relevant is the fact that the events described are in the "so-recent" past that many of us can think clearly back when the WWW was not such a pervasive influence in our lives.

From a "non-technical perspective," I enjoyed learning about Berners-Lee positions on such controversial issues as the Microsoft Anti-trust case, Censorship on the Web, the commercialization of the web and many other issues. This book provides and excellent opportunity for the founder of the web to address many issues that touch our every day lives.

From a technological perspective, Berners-Lee challenges technologists to think about the implications of the technologies that they create and the work that they do. He challenges us to take more a "macro" perspective and about the web and it's potential. He provides ideas for many new technologies that could benefit the web well into the future. He provides arguments in support of the "open-source" movement as well as critiques of the current patent system.

The book uses technical terms but the author provides a Glossary that makes the book accessible to technicians and non-technicians alike. This is thoughtful on the author's part and should encourage anyone to pick up this book. In sum, the book can best be described as an easy to read historical account that is both thought-provoking and accessible to a general audience.

This is a fascinating book on several levels. It is first a great social history of improbable invention. Take an English computer specialist working at CERN (the European Nuclear Research Consortium in Switzerland) who comes up with an idea for a worldwide system of easy communications that merely means he has to invent the concept of the URI and URL system of universal identifiers on a web of interconnected computers so that users can find specific sites. Then create a single protocol for www that everyone on the planet will get used to including http as a protocol for transferring information across a variety of systems, and do all of this on a voluntary basis subsidized by a nuclear research facility that was focused on vastly different questions.

This is the story of that stunning achievement but would be worth reading for only its own insights into technology and how societies evolve and how a determined creative and patient individual can impact on that evolution. However, this book is much more. It is second an introduction to a way of thinking about the web as a truly interactive system that allows people on a worldwide basis to work together. Berners-Lee notes that his vision of the web is not merely passive reading and passive accessing but the creation of a truly universal ability for people to work together and create a mutually better and more productive society by bringing people together as individuals on a worldwide basis. I found myself thinking much more about truly interactive participatory ideas with the web and how would you manage that level of creativity and group participation. This is a very worthwhile and easy to read story.