On Tue, Oct 07, 2003 at 10:16:51PM -0400, ravi wrote:
> > But there is an idea floating around geekdom that the Web works (in the
> > sense that it scales 5B+ documents, something which no one really
> > expected) because of various purely technological ideas...
> >
>
> i could use some clarification of the statement above. does it mean that
> in "geekdom" there is an idea that the web "works" *only* because of
> technological ideas? if not, then the claim is a truism isnt it?
No, it means that many technical people believe the Web *still* works at the
present scale because of some specific changes that were made to the HTTP
protocol. That is, these folks give no credence to the alternative
explanation that, even w/out those specific technical changes, the Web would
work at the present scale because of massive infrastructural investment --
which undoubtedly happened, I'd just like some kind of reasonably accurate
estimate of its value in dollars.
> some additional questions:
>
> 1. what is "the web"? is it the internet + the various web servers and
> documents that they serve?
That's a good question. I mean in this case it's that part of the Internet
which happens via HTTP, server & client. It's a significant percentage of
total Internet usage.
> 2. what does scaling to 5b+ documents mean? 5b+ html files stored
> somewhere on networked computers? 5b+ documents transmitted in
> parallel (i.e., capacity)?
Neither, actually. There are something like 5B+ addressable resources
("things which have URIs"), but they aren't all HTML files on servers, many
of them are resources which are computed on-the-fly. And I doubt anyone
believes that all of these resources could be simultaneously requested.
Anyway, irrespective of the overall context of my question, what I'm really
trying to figure out is the magnitude of infrastructural investment.
Kendall
--
Nobody said it was easy
No one ever said it would be this hard
Oh take me back to the start
--Coldplay, The Scientist
Jazz is only what you are. -- Louis Armstrong
Do you realize
that happiness makes you cry?
-- The Flaming Lips
