This Is For Everyone

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A couple of weeks ago, Tim published his memoir talking about the Web, his life, and yes, Solid. I thought it would be nice to bring it up in this forum, and share our thoughts on the book. Also, if you prefer audiobooks, it is narrated by Stephen Fry; so definitely give it a listen :).

You can find it here: https://thisisforeveryone.timbl.com/

I really enjoyed the book. Tim and the Web are really something special, and I wish more people knew about this story and the ideals behind the Web. I’m of course biased (being knee-deep into Solid), but I think the book is very accessible and should be enjoyable by everyone, true to its title. I’ll definitely be recommending it to my friends and family!

Here’s a few of my highlights:

  • Tim had to fight to keep the Web true to its values, and it was one of the main priorities during its evolution. This may seem obvious to us, but I’m sure not everyone is aware of how special this piece of technology really is.
  • Solid doesn’t come out of nowhere, it’s not just a “new decentralized protocol”. It’s a direct evolution of the Web, and shares most of its values.
  • It seems like “Data Wallets” really are the same as “Pods”, it’s just a different way of talking about the same thing.
  • I was happy to find mention of the Local-first movement, and Tim goes as far as saying that it is “a group of open-source developers motivated very much by the same goals as Solid”.
  • To no one’s surprise, the main challenges of today are algorithmic manipulation (i.e. Social Networks) and AI. Solid could prove crucial to tackle both, and we have an opportunity that we shouldn’t miss. It’s not too late (yet).
  • He mentions a map of the web he made in 2002 inspired by Middle Earth. That’s really cool, but I haven’t been able to find it anywhere online :scream:. Does someone know where to find it? Maybe @timbl?

And I’m sure I’m missing a bunch of things, but those are the main takeaways that come to mind.

So yeah, excellent book! Who else read it? Did you also enjoy it? What were your main takeaways?

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Picked up a copy at the library, and I’m about halfway through! I just got to 2001 and the invention of the CDN. I really enjoyed the year by year story of the 90’s, and I’m looking forward to the 2000-2010 bit too, as my own professional history prior to 2007 is a little hazy.

You can really see the shape of RDF in how Timbl talks about the relationships being the most important thing. I’m hoping to glean some further insight into how/why RDF totally failed to gain traction with web developers in the early 2000s, leading to the the situation today where I explain what I can do with a tripletore, sparql, and json-ld frames and most people just straight don’t believe me.

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I haven’t read it, but I am pretty sure the map you are referring to is this one.

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Yes, that’s the one! Thanks for sharing :D.

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case that image source goes offline, here’s it again: webworld | Solid Experiments

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Noel, Thank you for the nice review! Here is the map https://www.w3.org/2007/09/map/main-3.svg It must have been 2007 not 2002. We will add a link in future versions of the book.

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Found my way here due to this book :slight_smile: I’m not quite finished with it but did get through Chapter 13 to hear a bit about SOLID. I’ve tremendously enjoyed the book and have been sharing it with my tech book club group!

I’ve been dipping my toes into the ATProto world and felt that they were pretty similar. I’m not sure if the book touches on it eventually but I’m curious what community thoughts are on SOLID vs. ATProto.

I found this post about it already: Comparing Solid to ATProto PDS

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