10.17.2009

Tim Berners-Lee and the Dreaded Forward Slashes

News Alert: Tim Berners-Lee, creator of the World Wide Web, is sorry for putting forward slashes in web addresses. In a BBC article, he admits the symbols // before web addresses is "unnecessary."He's annoyed himself. I never notice it. Most of the time they will appear after you type the main part of the address. I don't find it a big deal, but apparently he' s gotten an earful about it from his users.

Computers, the internet, the World Wide Web, it's such an engrained part of our everyday lives. It's hard to imagine that one man is (partially) responsible for creating a society built online. It's funny to imagine him annoyed about coding he invented himself.

I found this article amusing because it reminds you that there's a person behind all of "this." Just as you should remember there are people behind every post, blog, website. Users feel they can get away with anything online because they can stay "anonymous." But there are measures to enforce punishments on those who publish defamatory or false information. It's something I think about as the media begins more and more to provide online content. We're still just as accountable for what we publish even though we can't be seen. So thanks for making life harder with the forward slashes, Tim Berners-Lee. We really needed the aggravation. I posted the address here, but it doesn't appear to link up. If you copy and paste it, that should work.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/8306631.stm

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