David's CHS 202 Blog - Clemson University

Before I began this class, my daily interaction with computers had already begun to raise some questions about the origin of the World Wide Web. Some of these questions have already been answered in this short period since school has started. For example, I used to wonder how the World Wide Web could have been created or even after it's creation, continue to function coherently with no governing body or single ruling organization. However, in reading this book by Tim Berners-Lee, I have since discovered that, in a sense, there is a body that deals with the development of the World Wide Web: the World Wide Web Consortium or W3C for short. I think the fact that I have not previously heard of the Consortium is testament to its goal of remaining at the forefront of web development without actually controlling the web or affecting those who use it socially and commercially. For me, it is comforting to know there is a body out there composed of (as far as I can tell) people who desire to create the World Wide Web to be a source of seamless, instantaneous collaboration between users. These people follow the beliefs of founder and visionary Tim Berners-Lee and do not desire to profit from their work. This is as evidenced by their "open-source" policy for any and all code that they write. Anyone who wishes to edit or manipulate their code can do so by visiting their website and copying the code for their own personal use. I recommend this book to anyone interested in playing a small part in the future development of the WWW, because in many of the later chapters, Berners-Lee presents his own ideas on where the web will go from here, probably in the hope that an aspiring programmer will make his idea into reality!