Weaving The WebThat's not really a slam against Weaving The Web, it is well written and interesting, but if you're not someone who's interested in computers or computer history you'd not only be bored by it, you'd soon likely be confused as heck. Personally, though I have no degree in Computer Science, I am interested in computing and its history so I found Weaving The Web to be fascinating though I have to admit that in a few places even I was a bit turned around. For one thing, there are enough acronyms such as FTP, HTML, HTTP, TCP, WWW, CERN, etc, etc, to keep an alphabet soup company stocked for years. Another problem for the layperson with Weaving The Web is that it is fairly dry, more of a scholarly work that covers the events that occurred without fully covering the people involved. Certainly the author is fair, at least as best I can tell, and gives credit where credit is due, but no one, including the author himself, is ever really fleshed out. The people in this book are occasionally referred to with respect or affection, but the human element of what these people were like, why the WWW project was so important to them, how it affected their lives in the short and long run were never really discussed. That more then the technical aspect of Weaving The Web was its biggest drawback.
Still, and again only if you're interested in the history of computing, it was a lot of fun seeing how the Web slowly developed through the eyes of its creator. What fascinated me the most about this is that even though the Web is very much a part of our lives not, and seems as though it has been around forever, it has actually only existed as a fully functioning entity for considerably less then a decade. It was also nice to see what the creator of the Web thought its future would and should be in the year to come.
So, if you're interested in the history of computers then you'll probably enjoy Weaving The Web. If you're not, give it a pass and try something less scholarly.
Grade: B