*hums the theme tune*

Quote: Aaron @ March 30, 2008, 10:40 PM

And considering the web was invented by an Englishman, we should be absolutely f**king ashamed.

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Was it?
I thought it evolved at the atom smasher in Cern?

Well I don't think it was an atom smasher then, but yes, it did.

Quote: Aaron @ March 31, 2008, 8:56 AM

Well I don't think it was an atom smasher then, but yes, it did.

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I think it was.

Anyhow, my point was I thought the web 'evolved' there, which suggests a group of various people over a period of time?
Are you sure this isn't just your patriotism and wishful thinking? Not saying you're wrong of course (except about Cern itself).

LOL. An internet geek like me? No, it was invented by Tim Berners-Lee (now Sir, quite rightly), who worked there during the 80s. Some of the underlying concepts had been around for a while (mainly the basic inter-linking of different documents, although not previously in a computerised form as far as I'm aware), but not in any form close to what or how the web actually operates.

(His parents) taught Berners-Lee to use mathematics everywhere, even at the dinner table.

That poor, poor child!

You know, before I knew about Cern's involvement with the creation of the web I'd heard lots of people say that the American military were using it in the 70's. Do you know anything about that or is it, as I suspect it might be, just Americans trying to claim it was theirs first?

I'm not the type to give the US credit but you are correct Ian and Aaron is partly correct. Lee created World Wide Web which is the coding that we use today for communicating. What was truely important is that Lee made it available to anyone instead of selling it. Otherwise we would not have what we use today.
What you are referring too Ian is the ARPAnet created in 1969 that was used for linking military network contracts and researchers. That is the internet.
So...
Tim Berners Lee = World Wide Web in 1989
US Military - Internet (ARPAnet) in 1969

No, I am correct (and you're not, 'cos the web isn't coding ). Ian is also correct, but has been mislead; what is now the Internet was developed by (well, for) the US military. The web is only a tiny part of it - albeit the most well-known and common part these days. Many people use the 'web' and the 'internet' interchangeably, which they are not, and it appears that someone has lead Ian down this path.

If anyone's interested, the original concept of ARPANET (also known as DARPANET) was that, should a communications link from A-B be lost, destroyed or compromised, messages could instead be routed from A to L to Q to F to B. From there, different communication types and methods were built up. The web is actually probably the newest of these, and as I said, most common.

*pretends it's not over my head*

Interesting Aaron! Interesting...

Sorry what I should have said was "Tim Berners Lee devised coding that made the World Wide Web possible".
And then I would have been correct, because everything else I said was right

Yes he did that - but he also devised and developed the 'back end' for it, not just "devised coding". That's just scratching the surface! Coding is one thing, but if there's not the distribution system to support it then it's utterly pointless.

Like I said, an Englishman invented the web.

Oh, and I didn't dispute anything else you said!

Well I found it interesting.
And yes, Aaron, I did consider the internet and the www to be interchangeable terms. I'm still not clear on the distinction though, as they both sound to me like they're doing the same thing.

Basically, the web is just one particular (and as I said, most common) section of the internet. Kind of like the hob is just one part of your oven.

E-mail is another part - probably second most common - as is FTP (file transfer protocol, which does exactly what it says on the tin). Then there's usenet, gopher (largely dead), IRC, and numerous other bits and pieces which I wouldn't know where to begin trying to explain to myself, let alone anyone else!

Ah I see what you're saying now, I thought you were talking about something more than the various protocols. So it turns out I did know after all, but just didn't think I did!

But the thing is, that means the Brit owes everything to the yanks, since he wouldn't have had anything to base his idea on if it wasn't for them. Also, he owes a lot to those French-speaking Swiss for providing him with the facilities.

LOL. Well, perhaps. But in regards to CERN, it may mostly be in (well, under) Switzerland, but it's not actually Swiss!