>By that logic then (which may be entirely fair and I don't necessarily disagree!) Web 3 is not the web either since blockchain is not a web protocol but rather a different type of P2P protocol also built on TCP/IP.
Yes. "Web 3" despite the name, is not the web, it's an application on the internet. The web is also an application on the internet, separate from Web3 (and Gopher and FTP and everything else.)
>But also, to my sort-of point. Web 1 was static plain HTML pages. This linked page is most certainly not "Web 0".
I guess we'll have to agree to disagree on this, since it's just a semantic argument. To me, Web 0 was static plain HTML. Web 1 was possibly the introduction of CSS and JS. Web 2 was AJAX and dynamic websites.
And my hot take on Web 3, not that it matters, is that it's properly multilingual computation on the web. Specifically being able to run applications compiled to Webassembly, and containers for legacy native applications.
As someone who actually lived through the Web to Web 2.0 transition... no.
Web 2.0 was not coined by historians to describe something after the fact. It was a term that was being used by the people who were inventing it. Much like Web 3 in that regard.
CSS and JS both weren't widely supported cross-browser until well into the initial web rollout. Before Ajax with had "Dynamic HTML" and also some pretty innovative things with "long polling."
And contrary to popular belief, "Web 1" was not as dark ages as people think. Forms were part of the HTML spec literally a decade before Web 2. We had plenty of dynamic content. It just required a post to a server instead of being able to be refreshed dynamically.
PHP was part of the Web 1 legacy and launched in 1995 and provided dynamic content. The first eCommerce sites predates "Web 2.0" by over a decade. I should know, I launched one of them. And before that you could make CGI programs in C. And before SQL databases became widely adopted for web applications we had these things called "flat files" we could write to.
Even the very early web specs has POST as a method/verb. Literally, it is in the HTTP 1.0 RFC from 1996.
What differentiated Web 2 specifically was user generated content and dynamic refreshing of the content. And I was actually there, when the phrase was coined. It's not some distant memory for me or something I read about, I was one of the Web 2 early pioneers.
Unless you were on ARPANET you did not use "Web 0"... "Web 0" is not a thing I have ever seen used in my entire 28 year career until this Hacker News post. You can't just rewrite history... there are people alive today who actually lived it.
You can disagree that Usenet is a predecessor to the WWW but you can't redefine Web 1 as Web 0. To anyone who lived it, that is absurd (and slightly disrespectful to our legacy).
You've suddenly become weirdly hostile and defensive. No shit, you were there? Yeah, so was I. So were a lot of people here. You're not the wizened greybeard telling the wet behind the ears noob how it was back in the day, so kindly remove that chip from your shoulder. This will be my last reply to you in this thread.
I'm not "rewriting history," and I never claimed "Web 0" was a term anyone actually used at any point in time. I was simply disagreeing with your definition of Web 0 upthread, which was itself disagreeing with OP's definition. I've never seen "web 0" used outside of this specific post either. But, like yourself, I was simply stating what I thought a more accurate taxonomy using that term would be. It was speculation. A thought-exercise.
Besides, as one of the great old-timers of the web you should prefer zero-indexing anyway.
Which is it? Am I hostile (aggressive) or defensive? ;)
It doesn't matter, in either case. I apologize. My frustration is not directed at you but rather the poster of this HN post who is claiming Plain HTML is "Web 0" -- it sounded at first (and second) read you were defending their definition of Web 0. I misread.
When you said "We agree to disagree" I thought you were taking the side of the poster of the "article" -- I agree Usenet is not "Web 0" -- Web 0 isn't a real thing. I was just offering a counter point that what came before "Web 1" was not "plain HTML."
Anyway, my apologizes for escalating. It was not my intention. I was just venting my frustration over the past year at people redefining terms with no regard for history.
Yes. "Web 3" despite the name, is not the web, it's an application on the internet. The web is also an application on the internet, separate from Web3 (and Gopher and FTP and everything else.)
>But also, to my sort-of point. Web 1 was static plain HTML pages. This linked page is most certainly not "Web 0".
I guess we'll have to agree to disagree on this, since it's just a semantic argument. To me, Web 0 was static plain HTML. Web 1 was possibly the introduction of CSS and JS. Web 2 was AJAX and dynamic websites.
And my hot take on Web 3, not that it matters, is that it's properly multilingual computation on the web. Specifically being able to run applications compiled to Webassembly, and containers for legacy native applications.