What a tangled Web! Analysis/Commentary In 1989, Tim Berners-Lee, an Englishman at CERN in Switzerland, invented a way of connecting software objects via Transfer Control Protocol, the Internet's communications pipeline. Berners-Lee linked virtual pages, graphics, and text using a standard for servers called Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) and a simple set of layout instructions called Hypertext Markup Language (HTML). The Web grew and grew, until many people now identify it with the entire Net. Part of the Web's success came from its reliance on an easy-to-use browsers -- first Mosaic, then Netscape and Internet Explorer. The connections activated between Web servers and "clients" (users' computers) via browsers enabled millions to get up to speed quickly . Since just about any powerful computer could function as a Web server, the World Wide Web soon embraced not only research networks, but also businesses and homes. Tim Berners-Lee went on to direct the World Wide Web Consortium -- known as "W3C" -- a semi-private research organization that evalutates standards and formats. Today, at ten years of age, the W3C finds itself in drastic need of re-invention, and the goals of the working groups at the W3C reflect this need. One group focuses on HTTP, seeking to make it more efficient, less prone to wasteful loops and duplicated data; another seeks to improve the "markup" language of the Web, making it more flexible to both humans and machines. The W3C recommends EXtensible Markup Language (XML) as the new-wave page-development code that allows middle layers of transmission to distribute commands and data intelligently. Unlike HTML, XML will be programmable -- able to obey some of the rules of software. XML will allow portions of a document to give operating commands or to receive them, and to package other file and program formats in a seamless way. HTML was hardwired in some of its characteristics, but XML will be eminently "soft." Improving the Web -- like most software upgrading -- presents risks, especially since over ten years many people and institutions have become ingrained in their habits. Why re-invent the wheel? Well, for one thing, the wheel isn't quite round, or has a weak axle, or was made for a wheelbarrow when what was needed was a horse cart. Surely the first person to offer to cover carriage wheels with rubber encountered as much resistance as the improvers of the Web. Fortunately, a few important software corporations side with the proponents of change. In recent days, Microsoft announced its Distributed Network Architecture (DNA), which actively supports XML. IBM, Sun, and others aren't far behind. While XML will likely rout proponents of proprietary formats or HTML aficionados, its acceptance by Microsoft offers a clear sign that change is in the air. Webmasters are out; cooperatives of business managers and IT strategists and technicians are in; script fixes are out, consistent coding is in; and tangles are out, smooth interlocking fibers are in. Indeed, the Web will likely untangle its dreadlocks through the investments of big business. Can the big corporations really afford to lose money through lack of functionality? Can they afford to let their customers sit and wait while their back-end goes through the drills? An enhanced Web will ensure smooth communication between mainframes and front-end interfaces -- the point-and-click buttons computer users activate to purchase products on e-commerce sites. Better, more reliable networking serves as a guarantee that business dollars will be productive and that sales can be effected with minimum delay, data loss, errors, and -- worse -- computer malfunctions. Until last year, there was still some debate about whether improvements would be accepted by an industry (mostly the software industry) that reaped big bucks from the status quo. Now, with products and services for sale on the Web that aren't only software programs or developer kits, the trend toward stagnation has probably ended. The word to the wise is beef up your infrastructure -- make way for shopping on the Web! (Even Tim Berners-Lee shops the Web, or so he says.) September 22, 1999