I disagree with Jean-Baptiste Query's presentation, which implies that you have to understand all levels of any process to understand the process itself. If that were true we would all have to understand quantum mechanics to understand everything. But no one understands quantum mechanics. So no one understands anything.
Even if it's true that no one understands anything, it's not a particularly useful way to approach things. It astonishes me that we as (mainly) software people who glory in abstractions even consider this insightful. *-- Russ Abbott* *_____________________________________________* *** Professor, Computer Science* * California State University, Los Angeles* * My paper on how the Fed can fix the economy: ssrn.com/abstract=1977688* * Google voice: 747-*999-5105 Google+: plus.google.com/114865618166480775623/ * vita: *sites.google.com/site/russabbott/ CS Wiki <http://cs.calstatela.edu/wiki/> and the courses I teach *_____________________________________________* On Thu, Mar 21, 2013 at 11:17 AM, Steve Smith <sasm...@swcp.com> wrote: > Jean-Baptiste Quéru's (accurate and complete to my study) description of > the details (down to the physical layer) of what happens when you go to > Google's homepage reminds me of how, roughly 22 years ago, at LANL: > > <long-winded technical anecdote> > > We wrote a simple PERL script to act as a daemon (a program running all > the time, listening on a logical port (conventionally 80) on the network) > to field this new thing called the Hyper Text Transfer Protocol. It would > then parse the request (e.g. "HTTP GET SomeGoodStuff"), whereupon the > daemon did a directory search of the Gopher directory structure for a > directory (or file) at the root named "SomeGoodStuff"... assuming it was a > *directory* rather than a *file* it then returned the directory listing > enclosed in a <UL> tag and each directory or file name enclosed in > <LI>SubdirectoryOrFileName</LI> tag, sending that back over the network to > whomever so requested it. If it were a *file*, it would return the > contents of the file. I think this was before MIME types, so the > requesting client was left to decide what to do with the contents based on > some assumptions about the file extension (.txt, .html, .jpg, etc.) and/or > the "Magic > Number<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magic_number_%28programming%29#Magic_numbers_in_files>" > (a simple "signature" in the first several bytes of the file). > > When we redirected the Directory Name Services (DNS) server for > www.lanl.gov and put it up for public access, we alerted Tim Berner's Lee > at CERN and we became the 50th listing on his > homepage<http://info.cern.ch/>of "other World Wide Web servers. It wasn't > long after that that the Web > exploded, growing (geometrically?) to rapidly to follow, both in number and > complexity of servers and in content type. > > Our own Chad Kieffer here on this list, entered the picture as a freshly > minted Graphic Designer interning at LANL. I helped to teach him to hand > cut HTML along with a half-dozen other designers there, and within a year, > they outstripped my knowledge of all things Web, along with hundreds of > individuals around LANL learning/creating on their own. When we retired > that PERL Script in favor of an early Apache (a Patchy) server with > dedicated (including the Gopher branch) content, I was already losing track > of the details that Queru (this has to be a taken name or a psuedonymn > doesn't it?) outlines here, and I was right smack in the center of that > vortex. As I remember it, Chad took lead on handling the LANL Science > Museum's presence and half a dozen others took on equally important > branches in our growing bush of nonsense. > > In parallel, Alan > Ginsparg<http://people.ccmr.cornell.edu/%7Eginsparg/blurb/pg14Oct94.html>was > building > xxx.lanl.gov which was NOT a pornography web server, though LANL and DOE > administrators were *sure* it either *was* or would be mistaken *for* > such. It was an archive for scientific papers which would eventually > become what everyone today knows and loves as ARXIV.org<http://archive.org>. > Alan's xxx.lanl.gov may have been up fielding requests before > www.lanl.gov even, it was hard to reconstruct the history later down the > line. Those of us who saw the barest hint of the future knew Alan was on > to something and that LANL bureaucrats would do all they could to FF it > up. Several of us went to bat with the administrators to keep them off > Paul's back, but he didn't need any help or protection, he was a force of > nature. > > It has been a very short but very long 22 years! I could dig up a > screenshot of one of our early pages (even find a few of them on Brewster > Kahle's Wayback Machine, but they are quite ugly/clunky and I would just > embarass myself). If you do go to the Wayback > Machine<http://archive.org/web/web.php>, > you will note that LANL was being crawled a LOT during the 2005-2006 tenure > of Retired Admiral Dr. Peter G. Nanos when Doug was using his Pester Power > on HIM. Sergey and Larry, be VERY afraid! > > Others here may be interested in using the Wayback Machine to traipse down > their own "memory lane". Most of us are used to the web being ephemeral... > imagining that if we see one thing one day that it will be there forever, > yet realizing at the same time that in fact, web pages change all of the > time with no record kept by the web server of the earlier versions. The > Wayback Machine and Internet Archive has done as much as it could to grab > snapshots of the web (and other internet resources) as often as it can to > help ameliorate that. Only history will tell how well they are doing! > > </long-winded technical anecdote> > > - Steve > > Sorry for the double post, but I thought a bit more info from below the > fold of essay would help: > > For non-technologists, this is all a black box. That is a great success > of technology: all those layers of complexity are entirely hidden and > people can use them without even knowing that they exist at all. <snip> > > That is also why it's so hard for technologists and non-technologists > to communicate together: technologists know too much about too many layers > and non-technologists know too little about too few layers to be able to > establish effective direct communication. <snip> > > That is why the mainstream press and the general population has talked > so much about Steve Jobs' death and comparatively so little about Dennis > Ritchie's: Steve's influence was at a layer that most people could see, > while Dennis' was much deeper. <snip> > > Finally, last but not least, that is why our patent system is broken: > technology has done such an amazing job at hiding its complexity that the > people regulating and running the patent system are barely even aware of > the complexity of what they're regulating and running. <snip> > > > > On Thu, Mar 21, 2013 at 11:00 AM, Owen Densmore <o...@backspaces.net>wrote: > >> From HN, a pointer to a delightfully clever essay that would be loved by >> Nick and others who are often bewildered by the hacker alphabet soup >> of acronyms and buzz words. >> >> Well, what _does_ happen when you got to a web page? >> >> https://plus.google.com/112218872649456413744/posts/dfydM2Cnepe >> https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5408597 >> >> >> This has the possibility of a new book that somehow makes it all >> reasonably clear. Maybe. >> >> -- Owen >> > > > > ============================================================ > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College > to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com > > > > ============================================================ > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College > to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com >
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