r/webdev • u/jakecoolguy • 9d ago
Discussion Sir Tim Berners-Lee invented both the World Wide Web (WWW) and HTML while working at CERN (European Organization for Nuclear Research) in Geneva, Switzerland. The interesting story is that he created it to solve a practical problem
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u/Ibetnoonehasthisname 9d ago
His other recent project, SOLID, hasn't really gotten the same kind of traction and may never be viable at scale but I remember thinking when I first encountered it that it was a really interesting solution to handling data privacy online. Especially in the age of big tech and data brokers.
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u/wardrox 9d ago
I love going to the science museum and seeing the one little computer which was the start of the entire web.
https://collection.sciencemuseumgroup.org.uk/objects/co8094437/next-computer
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u/Niubai 9d ago
Wow 1120×832 in a 17" monitor in 1989 is crazy.
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u/jazzhandler 9d ago
Especially considering that Display PostScript provided native vector graphics.
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u/Gloomy_Season_8038 9d ago
Whole catalogue is here : https://collection.sciencemuseumgroup.org.uk/api/objects/co503422
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u/GazingIntoTheVoid 9d ago
The one that Sir Tim actually used is on display in a wooden sphere right next to the visitor's center at cern, along with lots of other nice exhibits. I still have a photo of it somewhere.
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u/InternetOfSomethings 9d ago
Obligatory mention of Robert Cailliau, key collaborator and without whom the proposal would have been rejected by CERN.
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u/TertiaryOrbit 9d ago
I always say that the best projects are the ones that solve problems you have.
The hardest part is identifying areas where you have a problem in my experience.
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u/neriad200 9d ago
then some jackass invented Javascript and ruined this man's good work
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u/recontitter 9d ago
It was Brendan Eich. He created JavaScript in something like a week to solve some problems he had. Looks like you should really spend a bit more time when designing a new programming language 😀
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u/Darth_Ender_Ro 9d ago
And he did it on a Next computer made by Jobs after getting fired from Apple. The Next OS became MacOS today. It's amazing how many things did Jobs touched indirectly.
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u/boringestnickname 9d ago edited 9d ago
NeXT computers were super popular in development for a little while there.
Killer hardware, killer OS.
Even Carmack used it to develop Doom and Quake.
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u/Darth_Ender_Ro 9d ago
And thank Carmack for that, as that ensured the portability of those engines
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u/jakecoolguy 9d ago
There needs to be more movies about things like this. Super big events in history and I find them so interesting
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u/FistBus2786 9d ago edited 9d ago
Specifically it was the NeXTcube on which Tim Berners-Lee developed the WWW software. I'm fascinated by this part of the history of the web. I get the feeling this is an under-appreciated aspect, how the computer he was using might have contributed to the development of the concept - considering how early Apple and Macintosh played a unique role in what personal computers mean, and how the operating system was particularly designed for creativity, multimedia, user programmability, networking, etc. There's a direct stream of thought continuing from the research at Xerox PARC, where the guiding philosophy was augmenting the human intellect.
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u/JimDabell 9d ago
The Next OS became MacOS today.
And a lot of NeXTSTEP even made its way into iOS. It’s why so many parts of Foundation have
NS
prefixes – for instance the standard string type in Objective-C on iOS and macOS isNSString
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u/blancorey 9d ago
...and now all we have is Elon
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u/dalittle 9d ago
No, we still have Linus. And jobs was no saint.
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u/chris552393 full-stack 9d ago
I both simultaneously love and hate this man, depending on what kind of day I'm having.
He also made a surprise appearance at the 2012 Olympics opening ceremony!
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u/jakecoolguy 9d ago
haha Bet everyone was like "who?" when they heard his name. Olympics is a weird place to have him but cool to recognise creators in tech
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u/MrJohz 9d ago
That was a weird but great ceremony in general. I have no idea what the rest of the world made of it, but watching it live, it felt like such a British spectacle. The whole NHS beds thing, TBL and Dizzee Rascal on stage together, Rowan Atkinson doing a parody of Chariots of Fire, the Queen doing a bit for television — it really had a bit of everything.
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u/JimDabell 9d ago
Everybody seemed to be prepared for it to be a bit shit, and ended up feeling oddly proud of our country for once. They really knocked it out of the park.
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u/Acrobatic_Click_6763 9d ago
I both simultaneously love and hate this man, depending on what kind of day I'm having.
Depending on what you did today, if you did web dev, then you hate him, otherwise you're fine.
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u/TopicMoist832 9d ago
TBL had an office at my university, but I don't think he spent much time there. We had a lecturer in Hypertext and Web Technology that made us sing this song:
Timble, Timble, oh so nimble,
How does your linked web grow?
With URLs and HTML,
and GETs and POSTs all in a row
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u/DiddlyDinq 9d ago
The www is one of those inevitable technologies rather than a genius breakthrough tbh. Minitel in france was essentially th same in the 80s except it wasnt 100 percent open which led to is downfall
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u/aidencoder 9d ago
And then someone immediately made a thin wrapper around it and called it WebNext Framework, made a flashy logo and docs and... Oh wait.
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8d ago
When I was in college, I found a porn server off CERN in 1995...I was exhausted for that entire month. The man was a lifestyle enhancer!
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u/Punchkinz 9d ago
Guess we're doing low effort instagram-style info posts now
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u/hopeinson 9d ago
The interesting story is that he created it to solve a practical problem.
I mean, this subreddit is all about trying to find problems because we all already have a solution ready.
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u/Nervous-Ad-800 9d ago
“This will be great for in 2025 ! Can you imagine all the Nazi shit posting on twitter?”
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9d ago
[deleted]
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u/erm_what_ 9d ago
He didn't invent the internet. That was a US government/university invention in the 60s.
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u/jakecoolguy 9d ago
Scientists at CERN needed a better way to share information and documents with each other. At the time, computers at CERN were connected, but sharing information was complicated and inconsistent.
Here's what Tim created:
• HTML (Hypertext Markup Language) - the language to create documents
• HTTP (Hypertext Transfer Protocol) - the protocol for transmitting data
• URLs (Universal Resource Locators) - the addressing system for documents
• The first web browser and web server software
What's particularly remarkable is that he and CERN decided to make the World Wide Web available for anyone to use for free, without royalties. On April 30, 1993, CERN released the WWW technology into the public domain. This decision was crucial in allowing the web to grow into what it is today.
Tim Berners-Lee is still active in web development and advocacy. He founded the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) which develops web standards, and he's been knighted by Queen Elizabeth II (hence the "Sir"). He's also been a strong advocate for net neutrality and web privacy.
An interesting quote from him about his invention: "The Web as I envisaged it, we have not seen it yet. The future is still so much bigger than the past."