Was Viaweb first? | Hacker News Reader

Was Viaweb first?

paulgraham.com

13 pointsrms27 comments

This guy with an unholy Slashdot ID claims Xerox had one in 1993. http://developers.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=11972&thr...

http://www2.parc.com/istl/projects/mapdocs/

None of the examples given this far match "something like a desktop application, where the user actually builds things on the server."

Why is an inquiry like this voted up?

Exactly... no offense pg but who the hell cares. Is this about bragging rights?

12 points by rms 8 hours ago | 14 comments

It was not posted by pg...

I know it wasn't posted by pg, I was referring to the cult of pg in here.

If the same question was asked about any other early web property, no one would have given it a second look.

"If the same question was asked about any other early web property, no one would have given it a second look."

I think that was the reason for posting it here.

you got it

A quick perusal of the WWW'95 (April 1995) shows a whole variety of "web applications"

Beyond Browsing: Shared Comments, SOAPs, Trails, and On-line Communities

Spectrum: A Web-based tool for describing electronic resources

Using the Web as a Survey Tool: Results from the Second WWW User Survey

I can't find the abstracts for the earlier 2nd WWW conference, but I'm sure there a bunch of goodies there. And these are only published papers.

The CGI spec was defined and implemented (in NCSA httpd) in the late '93/early '94 timeframe by Rob McCool. The WHOLE purpose of CGI was to enable people to create "web applications". It is highly unlikely that there were no other "web applications" in the 18 months between the birth of CGI and Viaweb, considering the sheer amount of intellectual horsepower and entrepreneurial fervor at that time aimed at harnessing the net.

I think the claim is pretty shaky.

That said, you guys were definitely among the early pioneers. You built a great product and had a great exit. What more could you ask for? :)

http://www.library.ucsf.edu/info/about/ckm/it94paper.html

Nice try, but I believe this was really the first web application:

http://tinyurl.com/133t

I remember using it back in '94, on my Amiga 3000. It was a real time saver.

OK... so that site has a guestbook. I presume that other cites circa 1994 had guestbooks that allowed clients to modify pages. Were guestbooks web applications?

Don't be ridiculous. A guestbook isn't an application.

I'll agree that a guestbook doesn't feel worthy of the title application, but the line between "application" and "not-application" seems arbitrary, unless there is some other criteria I'm missing.

How complex does a piece of software have to be for it to be an application?

I thought it was obvious: It has to have a really big red button.

So no matter how you define it, the big red button page wins!

Also, http://www.news.com/E-commerce-turns-10/2100-1023_3-5304683....

Well, among the first for doing it with HTML and HTTP and the interface.

But, don't programmable MUDs date back to the 80s?

Here's recipe for earning a lot of karma: submit all links from paulgraham.com.

But what is the point in getting more karma?

Can you hire engineers and pay them with YC.news karma? When you try to secure VC funding, do the general partners check what is your karma on YC.news before they decide whether or not to fund you?

You didn't hear?! Hit 20K karma and get invited to a one minute YC interview. Get started!

most of them have been submitted already. But yes, anything that hasn't is fair game.

http://www.paulgraham.com/ind.html

What about geocities? I vaguely remember using it in 1995 :)

Maybe web based email such as hotmail was there earlier?

It appears not. It was commercially launched on July 4, 1996.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hotmail#Development_history

Founders at Work probably has more details, but my copy is at home.

How about SATAN (1993).

Although being "first!" is perhaps of historical interest, the idea of a web-based application is hardly any more original than a million business method patents that simply add "with a computer!" or "over a network!" or "via the web!".

Far more interesting is the way they did it.

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