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Happy Birthday WWW
Happy Birthday WWW
I never gave it much thought, but the worldwide web is not the same thing as the Internet. On the 30th anniversary of the WWW Google Doodles decided to publish a little article explaining it all. Pretty interesting stuff. I love the Original NeXT computer used by Tim Berners-Lee to develop the web.
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Re: Happy Birthday WWW
Yeppers, I read the articles also. There were also a few slide shows and video's I found interesting, showing how they used to get messages from one desk to another, or from one college to another, with all the different formats out there back then, and nothing was compatible with anything else.
Did you perchance hit the page of the earliest forms of HTTP used for the WWW?
It was so basic, I'm surprised it could even handle plain text, hi hi.
But the big thing was the creation of URLs to get things from point a to point b intact.
Did you perchance hit the page of the earliest forms of HTTP used for the WWW?
It was so basic, I'm surprised it could even handle plain text, hi hi.
But the big thing was the creation of URLs to get things from point a to point b intact.
Re: Happy Birthday WWW
I did not read beyond the main article but have a vague idea about the history of the Internets. I took a class to learn about the OSI model for networking and came out of there scratching my head. OSI is the standard but I don't see how it is possible for it to work. Perhaps back in the days when it was invented things were a bit more simple. It was pretty interesting stuff regardless, but now all I have to be concerned about is the Wifi here in the Command and Control Center.
Re: Happy Birthday WWW
I'm right with ya Yogi.
Back when I was using Apple computers, and then the early PCs, I was doing all kinds of things to add more space to my drives. I used a program called Space Manager, which could almost double the storage space on a floppy or hard drive.
Ironically, the name of the program we used for inventory control at work was also named Space Manager, but naturally had a whole different purpose.
In the early years, I learned so many tricks I could do on the 6502 processor, using only Basic with some peeks, pokes, and calls. When Beagle Brothers found out some of the things I could do, they offered me a job. However, I turned it down before they found out I didn't know diddly about programming. Everything I did was done by trial and error to see what would happen, and I just kept notes of what little tricks did what, then used them in the programs I was writing.
As you know, I still can't figure out how BASH works. I've gone through I don't know how many tutorials, and still can figure out the logic behind it. So I'm surprised I was able to figure out Basic as well as I did. But to me, Basic seemed logical. None of the other programming languages I've tried to learn, PHP, BASH, C+, etc. I can't see the logic to understand how to use them.
Back when I was using Apple computers, and then the early PCs, I was doing all kinds of things to add more space to my drives. I used a program called Space Manager, which could almost double the storage space on a floppy or hard drive.
Ironically, the name of the program we used for inventory control at work was also named Space Manager, but naturally had a whole different purpose.
In the early years, I learned so many tricks I could do on the 6502 processor, using only Basic with some peeks, pokes, and calls. When Beagle Brothers found out some of the things I could do, they offered me a job. However, I turned it down before they found out I didn't know diddly about programming. Everything I did was done by trial and error to see what would happen, and I just kept notes of what little tricks did what, then used them in the programs I was writing.
As you know, I still can't figure out how BASH works. I've gone through I don't know how many tutorials, and still can figure out the logic behind it. So I'm surprised I was able to figure out Basic as well as I did. But to me, Basic seemed logical. None of the other programming languages I've tried to learn, PHP, BASH, C+, etc. I can't see the logic to understand how to use them.
Re: Happy Birthday WWW
Program languages are supposed to be logical? I had no idea 
I have used all those languages you mention, and a few more. By far the easiest to use was BASIC. BASIC is a high level language that needs to be converted (interpreted) down to machine level for it to work. That's why it never became a developing tool. It's too slow and limited in what it can do, peeks and pokes notwithstanding. When you get down to languages that need to be compiled, that is were logic reigns supreme. The problem is to understand what logic we are talking about. The compiler lives in a world of it's own and you need to know what the compiler wants to see first before you can try to get the machine to do what you want. This is a very similar situation to understanding the Linux kernel and getting BASH to play nice with it. Those compiler and kernel authors are in a world of their own, and I'm guessing that's where you lost the logic to programming.
I have used all those languages you mention, and a few more. By far the easiest to use was BASIC. BASIC is a high level language that needs to be converted (interpreted) down to machine level for it to work. That's why it never became a developing tool. It's too slow and limited in what it can do, peeks and pokes notwithstanding. When you get down to languages that need to be compiled, that is were logic reigns supreme. The problem is to understand what logic we are talking about. The compiler lives in a world of it's own and you need to know what the compiler wants to see first before you can try to get the machine to do what you want. This is a very similar situation to understanding the Linux kernel and getting BASH to play nice with it. Those compiler and kernel authors are in a world of their own, and I'm guessing that's where you lost the logic to programming.
Re: Happy Birthday WWW
I went through an entire history book size training manual to learn C+.
Although I could do every sample in the book from cover to cover, I never understood why it did what it did.
Just like they have programs in plain English that will take what you want to do and convert it to html for you, unless you understand what it is doing you can never learn html.
Many eons ago, when I had the Heath/Zenith Octal Entry computer, I could do several things in Binary, but talk about a headache, hi hi. This is why they came out with programming languages, of which I'm sure some are low level like C+ or limited high level like Basic.
Since I do write my own websites in html5, and previous version, without helper programs, nearly everyone has told me to learn PHP.
But what I learned right off from a website I was involved with for numerous years. How things are done have changed considerably over the years until even though the website still works perfectly, it was not coded by today's standard way of doing things. It is in PHP, but how the original programmer achieved the things the website does, he made it impossible to move the databases because they are not built the way databases are built.
Laughing, sorta like the way I accomplished things I wrote in Basic.
It worked great for the purposes I wrote the programs for, but all the data contained therein was in the programming itself, no databases at all.
You can laugh if you want, but I did learn a little bit of PHP for a short time.
I was doing my lessons on-line from a tutorial that let you do the programming on-line too.
Everything I did on-line worked great. I could save my work, upload it later, and it worked.
But it would never work on my own computers.
They forgot to mention one major element required to make it work. It only works on a Server.
OK, once if learned this, I downloaded LAMP, and now my programs would run on my computer too.
However, now I was stuck with learning how a server works, and that too was over my head.
I was just lucky the standard settings from the download allowed it to do what I was doing.
Now with all the other irons I have in the fire, things I know I can't possibly finish before I die.
There's really no reason for me to try and learn anything new, I would never find the time to make use of it.
Heck, I forget things so easily, I have to relearn much of html before I can fix things on my own website.
Although I could do every sample in the book from cover to cover, I never understood why it did what it did.
Just like they have programs in plain English that will take what you want to do and convert it to html for you, unless you understand what it is doing you can never learn html.
Many eons ago, when I had the Heath/Zenith Octal Entry computer, I could do several things in Binary, but talk about a headache, hi hi. This is why they came out with programming languages, of which I'm sure some are low level like C+ or limited high level like Basic.
Since I do write my own websites in html5, and previous version, without helper programs, nearly everyone has told me to learn PHP.
But what I learned right off from a website I was involved with for numerous years. How things are done have changed considerably over the years until even though the website still works perfectly, it was not coded by today's standard way of doing things. It is in PHP, but how the original programmer achieved the things the website does, he made it impossible to move the databases because they are not built the way databases are built.
Laughing, sorta like the way I accomplished things I wrote in Basic.
It worked great for the purposes I wrote the programs for, but all the data contained therein was in the programming itself, no databases at all.
You can laugh if you want, but I did learn a little bit of PHP for a short time.
I was doing my lessons on-line from a tutorial that let you do the programming on-line too.
Everything I did on-line worked great. I could save my work, upload it later, and it worked.
But it would never work on my own computers.
They forgot to mention one major element required to make it work. It only works on a Server.
OK, once if learned this, I downloaded LAMP, and now my programs would run on my computer too.
However, now I was stuck with learning how a server works, and that too was over my head.
I was just lucky the standard settings from the download allowed it to do what I was doing.
Now with all the other irons I have in the fire, things I know I can't possibly finish before I die.
There's really no reason for me to try and learn anything new, I would never find the time to make use of it.
Heck, I forget things so easily, I have to relearn much of html before I can fix things on my own website.
Re: Happy Birthday WWW
I would have to agree with the people who are telling you to learn PHP. But, as you noted, it's not that simple. PHP is intended to manipulate databases. If your genealogy history, for example, was all in the proper database, your website could consist of a page or two and be simplified immensely. That would only work if you know how to manipulate databases in the first place so that you can get PHP to extract the data dynamically and then present it to your web page. That's a hella lot of learning!
Most likely PHP didn't work on your own computers because it wasn't installed there. PHP is a program like any other and needs to be present (or accessible) alongside the browser. Think of it like Flash. It's useless unless you have access to the Flash software which is usually on some server somewhere. But, if you want to create flash apps, you need to have that Flash software installed on your development system.
I don't know of anything in the physical world that would compare to C programming languages. Maybe it's like a mechanical engineer who has a warehouse full of tools. To the uninitiated those tools are meaningless. To the engineer having the right tool for the job is critical. C, C++, C# and all the rest would be like that warehouse full of tools.
As far as high level interpreted languages go they are teaching Python in schools these days. I never looked into it but I hear it is designed to make programming simple and easy to read. One of the first classes my granddaughter had to take at Mis U was Python. She will be using it in her actuarial work ... so they say.
Most likely PHP didn't work on your own computers because it wasn't installed there. PHP is a program like any other and needs to be present (or accessible) alongside the browser. Think of it like Flash. It's useless unless you have access to the Flash software which is usually on some server somewhere. But, if you want to create flash apps, you need to have that Flash software installed on your development system.
I don't know of anything in the physical world that would compare to C programming languages. Maybe it's like a mechanical engineer who has a warehouse full of tools. To the uninitiated those tools are meaningless. To the engineer having the right tool for the job is critical. C, C++, C# and all the rest would be like that warehouse full of tools.
As far as high level interpreted languages go they are teaching Python in schools these days. I never looked into it but I hear it is designed to make programming simple and easy to read. One of the first classes my granddaughter had to take at Mis U was Python. She will be using it in her actuarial work ... so they say.
Re: Happy Birthday WWW
I looked at Fortran and Pascal a number of years ago, and back then it seems everyone said to learn Java. I never thought of Java as a programming language. BASIC was considered a high-level programming language, and I don't know why, but it came simple to me. I understood it. But you could only do so much with it back then, don't know about today though.
Just like you don't have to know how to make silicon chips to own a computer.
It seems to me, as long as programming languages have been around, there should be a simpler way of programming using super high level simple programming languages.
After all, you don't need to know anything about html anymore to use the WYSIWYG html programming tools. Nearly every host these days offers things like WordPress (which I hate by the way) and a large pile of templates where you just put your data and images in the boxes provided, hi hi.
I actually played with a program not to long ago to create your own app. It wasn't much different than using an established blogging program to start a blog. Except this created a way for a customer to communicate with the seller. I didn't keep going with it because I ran across a similar program to write your own game. It used Flash Player so you would hate it, hi hi. I made four different characters and a playing screen, plus several objects the players could use. Just never came up with anything interesting for them to do. Then as usual, the real world stole my time from playing, hi hi.
I suppose, if I wanted to do a website that used a database, I only have two options.
Use the host provided software, like some websites have, or learn PHP so I could build my own and not rely on 3rd party software, which could change and mess me up.
If you knew me, you would know, it took a lot of faith on my part to use Bootstrap CSS instead of writing my own like I did in the past. I just didn't have the time to learn how to write a proper CSS to ensure my websites remained mobile friendly and viewable on all devices.
I had intended on trimming down my CSS file, keeping only those parts of Bootstrap CSS I actually used.
After all, I use a compressed version of my images, and a condensed version of the html. I keep the documented version for working on, but strip it down for the one I upload, so it runs faster.
Heck, I don't even remember how I did all that now. Sad. Must be a sign of old age, hi hi.
Just like you don't have to know how to make silicon chips to own a computer.
It seems to me, as long as programming languages have been around, there should be a simpler way of programming using super high level simple programming languages.
After all, you don't need to know anything about html anymore to use the WYSIWYG html programming tools. Nearly every host these days offers things like WordPress (which I hate by the way) and a large pile of templates where you just put your data and images in the boxes provided, hi hi.
I actually played with a program not to long ago to create your own app. It wasn't much different than using an established blogging program to start a blog. Except this created a way for a customer to communicate with the seller. I didn't keep going with it because I ran across a similar program to write your own game. It used Flash Player so you would hate it, hi hi. I made four different characters and a playing screen, plus several objects the players could use. Just never came up with anything interesting for them to do. Then as usual, the real world stole my time from playing, hi hi.
I suppose, if I wanted to do a website that used a database, I only have two options.
Use the host provided software, like some websites have, or learn PHP so I could build my own and not rely on 3rd party software, which could change and mess me up.
If you knew me, you would know, it took a lot of faith on my part to use Bootstrap CSS instead of writing my own like I did in the past. I just didn't have the time to learn how to write a proper CSS to ensure my websites remained mobile friendly and viewable on all devices.
I had intended on trimming down my CSS file, keeping only those parts of Bootstrap CSS I actually used.
After all, I use a compressed version of my images, and a condensed version of the html. I keep the documented version for working on, but strip it down for the one I upload, so it runs faster.
Heck, I don't even remember how I did all that now. Sad. Must be a sign of old age, hi hi.
Re: Happy Birthday WWW
When I left Motorola about 15 years ago, nobody talked about Fortran or Pascal. They were like Latin, a dead language. LOL Actually it was still being used in some places, but newer and better ways to do things came on board each year.
There are programming languages that are easy to read with only a minor amount of foreknowledge required. Real programmers don't use them. You have to keep in mind what a "program" is actually doing. It is sending a string of 1's and 0's to a processor that can makes sense out of them. No matter what the language is, the processor only understands 1's and 0's. Thus the time it takes to convert a human readable language to a machine readable language is wasted. The lower the level programming you can do, the quicker your machine will run. Speed and memory are everything.
You don't have to know what the processor is doing in order to become a successful programmer, but it helps. The best programmers can write in assembly language and I've met a few who could actually do binary scripts in their head. Talk about bit heads!
Just to be clear about it, HTML is not a program language. It is a text markup language for show and not much more. It has no memory capability, for example, and any logic or computing is done with embedded scripts, program calls, and cgi routines on the server. As you well know it can get complicated, but it is a mistake to think of it as programming.
Putting your website into database format would have to be done locally on your computer. Thus you would need a copy of PHP, SQL, and whatever other apps you want to embed into your web page. Once you got the site working on your office machine, then you have the choice of hosting it on your own server (with all those applications pre-installed) or uploading it to somebody else's server. No mater where it's hosted, you will still need to know how to manipulate a database, then how to extract the data, then how to feed it to HTML for it to render a web page. If it sounds complicated, that's because it is.
You did the right thing with Bootstrap CSS given all the intricacies built into your web pages. It's not the most efficient way to render web pages, but it gets the job done with minimal effort. Same goes for all those templates and HTML generators. They are typically inefficient, but a lot easier to use than doing it from scratch. When you consider the size of the audience to which you are appealing, I think you are justified using the inefficient web page makers.
There are programming languages that are easy to read with only a minor amount of foreknowledge required. Real programmers don't use them. You have to keep in mind what a "program" is actually doing. It is sending a string of 1's and 0's to a processor that can makes sense out of them. No matter what the language is, the processor only understands 1's and 0's. Thus the time it takes to convert a human readable language to a machine readable language is wasted. The lower the level programming you can do, the quicker your machine will run. Speed and memory are everything.
You don't have to know what the processor is doing in order to become a successful programmer, but it helps. The best programmers can write in assembly language and I've met a few who could actually do binary scripts in their head. Talk about bit heads!
Just to be clear about it, HTML is not a program language. It is a text markup language for show and not much more. It has no memory capability, for example, and any logic or computing is done with embedded scripts, program calls, and cgi routines on the server. As you well know it can get complicated, but it is a mistake to think of it as programming.
Putting your website into database format would have to be done locally on your computer. Thus you would need a copy of PHP, SQL, and whatever other apps you want to embed into your web page. Once you got the site working on your office machine, then you have the choice of hosting it on your own server (with all those applications pre-installed) or uploading it to somebody else's server. No mater where it's hosted, you will still need to know how to manipulate a database, then how to extract the data, then how to feed it to HTML for it to render a web page. If it sounds complicated, that's because it is.
You did the right thing with Bootstrap CSS given all the intricacies built into your web pages. It's not the most efficient way to render web pages, but it gets the job done with minimal effort. Same goes for all those templates and HTML generators. They are typically inefficient, but a lot easier to use than doing it from scratch. When you consider the size of the audience to which you are appealing, I think you are justified using the inefficient web page makers.
Re: Happy Birthday WWW
I don't use the web page making programs. I literally write my own HTML pages using a plain text editor like GEdit.
I've tried things like BlueFish and others, and although they do make it easier, they add a lot of stuff to the pages I don't want there.
When I first changed from HTML to XHTML/CSS all of my pages were hand-written. It was only when I had to change again to HTML5 that I decided to use Bootstrap CSS as my CSS, but never got around to removing those parts I didn't use to make it load faster.
I even talked to my Host Provider about this when he made a comment about my website being condensed for speed. He says almost everyone now has Bootstrap so it does not slow down the loading time of my page, so I shouldn't worry about. My pages are really nothing more than text anyhow, with only a few compacted images. Plus we are not on 56k dial-up anymore, hi hi.
When I run my html page through a condenser to remove everything not part of what is actually needed to produce the visual page. It does speed it up. But does not change the code.
By my way of thinking, when you use an upper level programming assistant to create a computer program, I thought what the compiler did was convert the upper level language to binary code for the computer.
At one time I used a program to convert experimental lesson programs to EXT for Windows computers.
I paid dearly to buy the Microsoft Macro Assembler, but never got past my lessons, so never made anything useful.
Anyhow. Once you write a program in any programming language, I just assumed it was compiled into machine code so it would run on a computer. If that's the case, it seems it wouldn't matter how bulky the language used was before it was converted to machine code. Or am I missing something here?
I've tried things like BlueFish and others, and although they do make it easier, they add a lot of stuff to the pages I don't want there.
When I first changed from HTML to XHTML/CSS all of my pages were hand-written. It was only when I had to change again to HTML5 that I decided to use Bootstrap CSS as my CSS, but never got around to removing those parts I didn't use to make it load faster.
I even talked to my Host Provider about this when he made a comment about my website being condensed for speed. He says almost everyone now has Bootstrap so it does not slow down the loading time of my page, so I shouldn't worry about. My pages are really nothing more than text anyhow, with only a few compacted images. Plus we are not on 56k dial-up anymore, hi hi.
When I run my html page through a condenser to remove everything not part of what is actually needed to produce the visual page. It does speed it up. But does not change the code.
By my way of thinking, when you use an upper level programming assistant to create a computer program, I thought what the compiler did was convert the upper level language to binary code for the computer.
At one time I used a program to convert experimental lesson programs to EXT for Windows computers.
I paid dearly to buy the Microsoft Macro Assembler, but never got past my lessons, so never made anything useful.
Anyhow. Once you write a program in any programming language, I just assumed it was compiled into machine code so it would run on a computer. If that's the case, it seems it wouldn't matter how bulky the language used was before it was converted to machine code. Or am I missing something here?
Re: Happy Birthday WWW
Both interpreted program languages and compiler program languages end up feeding the microprocessor 1's and 0's. How it gets to that level is where compiled programs outshine the others. Compilers are written for specific processors because the instruction set for each processor is different. Maybe they lump a bunch into a class, but there are still zillions of unique processors out there that each listen to only their version of binary instructions.
When you compile a program the output is a binary file (source code in those Linux repositories) that can be read directly by the CPU. When you write BASIC, for example, that has to be converted to binary on the fly before it is fed to the CPU. Think of WINE in Linux. Think of the delays you see there. That's partly due to the fact that WINE is converting those Windows executables into something the Linux kernel can read and respond to. Native Linux code has no such delays and runs a lot smoother.
It's always a good thing to optimize your web pages. The reason for that is you never know what the server, network, or the end user's computer is capable of doing. The best you can do is make your part of the transaction as efficient as you know how to do. Then again, I'd guess in at least half the instances the viewer can't tell your site has been optimized because something else is slowing down the rendering.
When you compile a program the output is a binary file (source code in those Linux repositories) that can be read directly by the CPU. When you write BASIC, for example, that has to be converted to binary on the fly before it is fed to the CPU. Think of WINE in Linux. Think of the delays you see there. That's partly due to the fact that WINE is converting those Windows executables into something the Linux kernel can read and respond to. Native Linux code has no such delays and runs a lot smoother.
It's always a good thing to optimize your web pages. The reason for that is you never know what the server, network, or the end user's computer is capable of doing. The best you can do is make your part of the transaction as efficient as you know how to do. Then again, I'd guess in at least half the instances the viewer can't tell your site has been optimized because something else is slowing down the rendering.
Re: Happy Birthday WWW
OK, Gotcha on what is happening now. I do know when I get a Source Code it has to be compiled to use on my computer. But by the same token, it seems once I have it compiled I can use it on all of my computers. Maybe not? It could be I've only used it on the AMD computers and not tried it on an Intel computer. Don't remember anymore. Almost everything is in the repositories now, and if it isn't, you can find a compiled version usually from the original team who wrote the program.
Re: Happy Birthday WWW
It's been many many years since I used a compiler and most of the details are vague now. I was dealing with Motorola processors at the time and anything I did would work on all the processors I had access to; only a few in those days. I'm pretty sure, however, that compiling for an AMD device will give you a different binary output than compiling for an Intel device. Likewise 32bit vs 64bit. In all cases you would prefer to compile a program for it's efficiency. Then, too, only the geekiest of developers would care about such things. LOL
Re: Happy Birthday WWW
I'm more like Schultz - "I know Nothing!"