Preface.html
4.21 KB
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
<head>
<meta name="generator" content=
"HTML Tidy for Mac OS X (vers 31 October 2006 - Apple Inc. build 13), see www.w3.org" />
<title>
Preface - World Wide Web Design Issues
</title>
<link rel="stylesheet" href="di.css" type="text/css" />
</head>
<body bgcolor="#FFFFFF" text="#000000">
<hr />
<p>
<a href="Overview.html">Design Issues</a>
</p>
<h1>
Preface
</h1>
<h2>
Architectural and philosophical points
</h2>
<blockquote>
<i>These statements of architectural principle explain the
thinking behind the specifications. These are personal notes
by Tim Berners-Lee: they are not endorsed by W3C. They are
aimed at the technical community, to explain reasons, provide
a framework to provide consistency for for future
developments, and avoid repetition of discussions once
resolved.</i>
</blockquote>
<p>
I have found that, having started this set of notes in 1990
in the (for me) novel medium of hypertext, it has been
difficult to tear free of it: my attempts to lend hierachical
or serial order have been doomed to failure. Further, as
ideas and these web pages have evolved, it has been important
for me to be able to reorganize my thoughts, grab a new leaf,
shake the tree and regard it as the root. So the reader needs
to be aware of this, that each page may be an attempt to put
across a given concept serially, but if you are looking for
an order of concepts and subconcepts, you have as much hope
as you would with words in the dictionary. I can sympathise
with Ted Nelson whose <cite>Litterary Machines</cite> has "a
Chapter Zero, several Chapters One, one Chapter Two, and
several Chapters Three", not to mention with Ludwig
Wittgenstein whose <cite>Philosophical Investigations</cite>
have only paragraph numbers for structure.
</p>
<p>
The notes are in a constant state of flux, sometimes minute
by minute, sometimes decade by decade. Their status varies -
some have typos and spelling errors, and represent thoughts
half expressed, wheras others described resolved issues which
have become fundamental architectural decisions in the
conceptual infrastructure of the Web. Again, something in me
resists the urge to draw a line and move things from here
into a "done deals" space. I try to represent accurately the
status of a given page in the section above the rule at the
top. Definitive documents, reviewed by W3C members and
others, you will find elsewhere.
</p>
<p>
Neither have I found it easy to restrict myself to separated
technical or philosophical arguments and somehow this I feel
is also important, the sharpening happening, after all, where
the knife meets the stone.
</p>
<p>
I did draw a line between the really old ones whose dates I
couldn't necessarily even find, and which were too out of
date to find themselves linked into any current discussion.
Hence the brown archival section on the contents page, and
the brown archived notes it points to. These are really only
available for completeness of archival, and not suggested
reading. The other remarks here do not apply to them.
</p>
<p>
For all its (or because of its) lax flexibility, I have
personally found this space a useful one. I have used it to
place opionions and explanations which I have needed to
express, and have found it useful to be able to express them
later to others. But also I have found it a personally useful
excercie to review the state of order and disporder from time
to time, part of the intuitive process of making a new step.
But that is all personal use and, and for the hestiations I
have just outlined, I have never felt that the whole
collection has been worthy of recommeding as reading as a
work in itself.
</p>
<p>
Tim BL October 1998
</p>
<hr />
<p>
<small>$Id: Preface.html,v 1.5 1999/01/06 18:12:59 timbl Exp
$</small>
</p>
</body>
</html>