Web technologies evolve faster. Everyday there are new things popping out. Of course, web is also a domain to easily produce bubble since people think it is easier to build one website, and collect money by sitting behind. This is also why we have dot com bubble 1.0 around 2000, when I was still in school.
Have I experienced web technologies previously? Yes, I am not a layman and knew nothing about web. In 1999, I led a team and built website for my lab while I pursued my graduate degree. We used both hardware and software from IBM to create a distance learning website. Students can register class online, download or watch recorded courseware, ask teacher questions or submit homeworks. The server was classic IBM RS6000 black machine, and it runs AIX 5L operating system, HTTP web server, Websphere application server, and DB2 database server at that time. Luckily, I worked as architect, and get chance to touch everything building a website. We did web programming using JSP, Servlet and Javabean. Of course, HTML, CSS and Javascript are always there. What's more, we have professional graphical designer to make the websites look nice. Anyway, it is a student project. That is my first chance to touch website design, and also the only chance for me to build a website in the past 10 years. Still remember XML is one of the hottiest buzz word at that time.
After I graduated, I started to working in telecom/datacom infrastructure industry, which is quite different from Internet. Most time, I made a living by programming C, even seldom using C++. The web was becoming far away from me and most concepts I mastered during building website become blur. I even did not get any chance to refresh them. As we know, to master any technologies in computer science, the best way is to do a real project using it.Or else, you will forget most of things you are familiar today in future.
In those days, web technologies come back and become hot. Most Internet companies are the hottest companies in the valley --- Google, Facebook, Saleforce, Zygna, Linkedin, Netflix, Amazon. Different from dot com bubble, this time, web started to bring us real money rather than buzz word. People also got used to web services those new companies bring to us -- search what we want to know on Google or Bing, watch video online by subscribing service from Netflix or Hulu Plus or watch them free on Youtube, make friends, kill time via Facebook, build our professional networks using Linkedin, play free games on Zynga. Without web, people will feel boring in front of computers.
While digging into lower level bits, I still have the passion to learn new technologies to see what's going on. On one side, I could understand today's web technologies deeply; On the other hand, I can see whether I can build one website of my own.
That's why I want to create this blog and try to log everything I did for a websites. Wish it will be useful for people who love technologies.
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