Re: Off Topic - But Heinous

[Mike Ash <mike@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

In article <1271795452@xxxxxxxxx>, throopw@xxxxxxxxx (Wayne Throop)
wrote:

> :: A great deal of the Web goes OVER the Internet.  But they're not
> :: identical.
>
> : Mike Ash <mike@xxxxxxxxxxx>
> : The web is a fairly integral part of the modern internet.  To say that
> : the internet is just TCP/IP is to be somewhat disingenuous at this
> : point.  The US created large portions of it, but the web is a big
> : chunk too.  You really can't say that any one individual entity
> : invented it.
>
> Well.  HTTP and HTML has a slightly better case for "one person"
> inventing it (based on lots of other pre-existing ideas wrt hypertext
> and network protocols and such, but still).  Which was done under the
> auspices of CERN.
>
> Any given protocol has a similar story, of course.  Though I'm not sure if
> IP really had a single designer. in quite the same way as HTTP.
>
> However, it's entirely fair to point out that "the web" and "the internet"
> are, indeed, not identical.  "The internet" is often considered to be the
> suite of IP-based protocols (and maybe the data being transported byt hem,
> and/or some of the hardware upon which they run). The fact that this
> includes HTTP, and HTTP is very often used to transport HTML, doesn't make
> them identical, any more than a building and it's plumbing are identical,
> or a car and its drivetrain, or a city and its traffic lights... or perhaps
> more apt, a city and the cars and roads.
>
> Indeed, not only "fair" but somewhat crucial understanding almost
> anything about either one of them.

Sure, "web" and "internet" aren't identical, or anything close. "The
internet" is a fairly vague term, but I think that any reasonable
definition of it must include the common protocols that it carries, such
as HTTP, and the common formats that were defined for them, such as
HTML. Nobody invented the internet; lots of people invented various
parts of it.

--
Mike Ash
Radio Free Earth
Broadcasting from our climate-controlled studios deep inside the Moon