Fun_People Archive
18 Sep
WWW ==> WEB ?

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From: Peter Langston <psl>
Date: Thu, 18 Sep 97 00:21:10 -0700
To: Fun_People
Subject: WWW ==> WEB ?

From: Dave Yost <Dave@Yost.com>
From: http://web.Yost.com/Misc/webdot.html

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		       The Campaign To Replace
		"double-you-double-you-double-you-dot"
		                 With
		               "web-dot"
		
		               Dave Yost


"World Wide Web" is elegant.

"Double-you-double-you-double-you" is idiotic.

"Web" is short and clear.

Better web sites everywhere are starting their names with "web" instead of "www".

If you have a web site, here's how easy it is to do your part:

 * Instruct your DNS server to add "web.YourHost.com" as another name for
   "www.YourHost.com".
 * Leave "www.YourHost.com" in place forever to support old links & bookmarks.
   It doesn't cost anything.
 * Change all occurrances of "www" to "web" in all of your web pages.  (This
  is especially easy if you use a great text editor such as BBEdit for Mac OS.)

Hey, I know it's not a big deal. But if you do it, the world will be relieved  
of a silly little bit of tedium, and radio announcers will thank you (except  
the ones who love to show off that they went to broadcasting school by saying  
"double-dee-you").


And now for the edutainment portion of our programme
(to be read with overacting)

"W" is a letter that is not one syllable, for that would be too few, a
letter that is not two syllables, for that too would be too few, but a
letter, in fact the one letter of all twenty-six that insists upon
blathering on and on in its attempt to twist the tongue and overtax the ear,
extending to the full three, yes three--three syllables, the legal
alphabetical maximum. But that is only the beginning. We go on to treble
the damages by repeating this freak letter, this monstrosity that is one
thing, claims to be two other things, but is really three things, not once,
not twice, but a full three times, in a nonometric rhapsody fleshed out to
the nines, a compound triplicate triumphant cat-o'-nine-tails
tongue-lashing, a nonotuple witches' syllabic brew of treble, treble, toil
and trouble.

It is enough I say! Nine times enough, in fact.

The simple Old English word "web", adopted from the ancient Monosyllabic
falls easily off the tongue, transitions nicely to the "dot", and is
unmistakable in its equivalence to its bombastic predecessor.

As Professor Strunk might have said, "Omit needless syllables."

Or as Elmer Fudd said, "Aye, there's the wub."

And as a Southern governor said, "I hearby dub ya 'Dub-ya Dub-ya Dub-ya.'"

And remember, it's "wub-a-dub-dub-dub, nine men in a tub".

And now for our song, sung to "row, row, row your boat":
Double-u, double-u, double-u dot, DownTheStream dot com,
Double-u, double-u, double-u dot, double-u enough already.


And now for the extra-techie portion of our programme.

You could dispense with the prefix altogether and use the simpler
"YourHost.com".  If this seems undesirable because you need to split off
your http traffic to a different host or set of hosts, the solution is to
use a router to redirect the http traffic. [If anyone knows of a good link
to information about this, please let me <Dave@Yost.com> know, and I'll put
it here.]

If you know who put up the first web site named www.something, please let
me <Dave@Yost.com> know.
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         Some Web Sites whose names start with "web."

Research indicates approximately 25,000 sites as of September 16, 1997.
This estimate was extrapolated from an Infoseek search and an Altavista search.

Dave Yost's Web Site (of course)
Advanced Systems Network
AGNIS Homepage
Aimnet Corporation
Bare Bones Software, Inc.
Bienvenue sur FDN
Boston University Home Page
California State University, Los Angeles
Campbell County School District - Gillette, Wyoming
Campbell County School District - Gillette, Wyoming
Canada On-Line
Canada Online
City University, School of Informatics
Consulan - Home Page
db Technology's Internet Users Home Page
Division of Engineering & Weapons, USNA
ECOLE NORMALE SUPERIEURE DE CACHAN
FAO Plant Genetic Resources Specialized Information system
Federal Information Exchange Home Page
Forage Information System
http://web.uvic.ca/
Hudsonet!
Indiana State University
Irish Higher Education Authority
ISBE Users WWW Server
Katz Family Home Page
kyoto-Inet Home Page
MasonLink (George Mason University)
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Metron Home Page
MSU Department of Computer Science
Physics_Hypertext_Home
Piedmont College Home Page
Puerto Rico EPSCoR's Web Server
RAMS-FIE
Serveur secondaire CIE
Sirius Connections Internet Services
SNCF
Storm Home Page
SU Personal Home Pages
The Goon Show Preservation Society
The Web Limited
The WorldNET
Unite REseaux du CNRS
Web.Org.UK
web.sbtcorp.com
Welcome!
Whoops!
W.W. Norton
Yonezawa Lab WWW Server
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