i used to think web browsers were cool and now i hate them. whose fault is this? everybodys
@Lady I think we can make web browsers better and cooler by making them better at browsing, the web,
(I think some features that are not as he|pful for browsing the web, maybe we can skimp on.)
@gaditb the problem is that our conceptualization of “the web” has largely been created and directed by web browser manufacturers, who have had bad ideas about it
@gaditb as an example question that is hard to resolve given the history of the web and browsers: are R·S·S feeds part of the web?
@Lady Hmm.
I don't know if this is what my opinion is, but what do we get if we take the most expansive possible view, that "yes, they unquestionably are" and also include PDFs, .doc/.ppt/etc. files, &c., that have hyperlinks in them and are served from a web server routed-to-by and acting-on a URL?
(... is that "&c." even usefully defineable? or alternatively is it usefully gesturable at?)
@gaditb well, i think there are two competing definitions here
there is a big “web”, which is anything which is arguably hypertext and which participates in the hypertext universe of the Internet
but there is also a smaller “web”, which is a set of social norms and conventions (including file formats and standards) for those hypertext documents
i don¦t buy the argument that the web should not have standards, but then the question remains as to what the scope of those standards should be? (which presumably is also the scope of web browsers)
@gaditb but, importantly, you can be a hypertext document connected to other hypertext documents with·out following standards, and that is probably still participating in the big web even if it is standing apart from the little one