The Server-Side Pad

I wrote a proposal this month; enhancements to a financial data aggregator Betterdot implemented at a large research house.  If I may say so myself, I am pretty happy with the outcome.  I believe these enhancements will help our client get better results, faster.  But my proposal won’t change the world.  Why?  For one’s proposal to change the world, one would have to be a head of state, an explorer, a captain of industry or perhaps simply…Tim Berners-Lee.  In March of 1989, 20 years ago this month, Tim Berners-Lee wrote a proposal too.  He had an idea about adding hypertext to the emerging Internet.  He called it the World Wide Web.  He didn’t stop there.  He designed the first browser, editor and web server, then went on to found the W3C at MIT.  Staying clear of clichés and truisms is hard here.  Hypertext has quite simply changed the world.  Because of it, hundreds of millions of people everyday can work, pursue their dreams and ambitions and connect with one another exchanging text, photos, music and videos.  The web isn’t perfect, far from it.   But that’s because it wasn’t engineered to be used by machines (as XML was), it was meant for humans and we are hardly perfect.   The world wide web is a human-centered solution to humanity’s quest for information, knowledge and, dare I say, fulfillment.  Thank you Mr. Berners-Lee.