Fall Semester 2002

History of the web and this class.

  1. Scientists believe that humans are the grand result of billions of years of evolution. I can't explain the entire theory of evolution here, but it can be summarized this way:

    THEORY OF EVOLUTION (Summary)

    First, there were some amoebas. Deviant amoebas adapted better to the environment, thus becoming monkeys. And then Unix was invented. (I am leaving out some details, but the theory itself also has a few holes that are best left unquestioned.) Anyway, it was a slippery slope after that. I am not sure we need to explore this any further, so let's move on.

  2. This book is an exhaustive overview of the programming paradigms currently used on the web, in the sense that if you held the book above your head for several hours, you would become exhausted. I recommend that you do just that before reading it, so you'll be groggy and won't notice that the paragraphs don't all fit together - like this next one.

    I'm more of a sprinter than a marathoner when it comes to many aspects of life. For example, when I'm running. Over short distances - up to two yards - I can run faster than an average sprinter. But over long distances, I'm not so impressive. I try to compensate for my lack of long-distance endurance by having good form. I'm told that my running style is quite majestic. That's probably because I learned to run by watching nature films in which leopards chased frightened zebras. Now when I run, I open my eyes real wide and let my tongue slap the side of my face. If you saw it, you'd be saying, "That's very majestic." And then you'd run like a frightened zebra. That's why my homeowners association voted to ask me to do my jogging with a pillowcase over my head.

  3. Much could be said about the history of the web, but the best thing we could do is to simply get started. A better time to evaluate the technologies and their chronologies would come with Lecture Notes Nineteen (Web Programming Then and Now. The Apache Project).

  4. Our focus is everything Open Source. This much should be clear from the outset.

Last updated: Sep 3, 2002 by Adrian German for A348/A548