Yax.com · Blog · Out of the Matrix: Early Days of the Web (1991)

Thirty years later, it is easy to overlook the web’s origins as a tool for sharing knowledge. Key to Tim Berners-Lee’s vision were open standards that reflected his belief in the Rule of Least Power, a principle that choosing the simplest and least powerful language for a given purpose allows you to do more with the data stored in that language (thus, HTML is easier for humans or machines to interpret and analyze than PostScript). Along with open standards and the Rule of Least Power, Tim Berners-Lee wanted to make it easy for anyone to publish information in the form of web pages. His first web browser, named Nexus, was both a browser and editor.

Networked information services: The world-wide web [PDF]

A 1992 paper by Tim Berners-Lee, Robert Cailliau, and Jean-Françoise Groff.

The W3 project is not a research project, but a practical plan to implement a global information system.

WWW:BTB — History (Overview)

This history of the World Wide Web from 1996 is interesting for the way it culminates with …Java. At that time, the language seemed like it would become the programmatic lingua franca for the web. Brendan Eich sure upset that apple cart.

The Man Who Invented The Web - TIME

This seventeen year old profile of Tim Berners-Lee is fascinating to read from today’s perspective.

Answers for young people - Tim Berners-Lee

Many, many years ago, Tim Berners-Lee wrote this page of answers to (genuinely) frequently asked questions he got from school kids working on reports. I absolutely love the clear straightforward language he uses to describe concepts like hypertext, packet switching, and HTTP.