Update 20190312 When the web grew up- A browser story.md

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@ -17,13 +17,13 @@ web 的诞生浏览器的故事grew up: A browser story
That's not to suggest that the place where I was working—an academic publisher—particularly "got it" either. 这是个大部分人还在用 28k8 猫访问网页的地方。我记得我拿到 33k6 猫时有多激动。This was a world in which a large percentage of the people visiting their website were still running 28k8 modems. I remember my excitement in getting a 33k6 modem. 至少上下行速率不对称的日子过去了,以前带宽显示 1200/300 特别常见。t least we were past the days of asymmetric upload/download speeds,1 where 1200/300 seemed like an eminently sensible bandwidth description. 这意味着This meant that the high-design设计复杂, high-colour色彩缤纷, high-resolution纤毫毕现 documents created by the print people (端同一家饭碗) were completely impossible on the web. 我不可能让大于 40k 的GIF 出现在网站的首页推送给访问的人。I wouldn't allow anything bigger than a 40k GIF on the front page of the website, and that was pushing it for many of our visitors. 大于大约 60k 的会作为独立的图片缩略图链接到参照页。Anything larger than 60k or so would be explicitly linked as a standalone image from a thumbnail on the referring page.
To say that the marketing department didn't like this was an understatement. Even worse was the question of layout. "Browsers decide how to lay out documents," I explained, time after time, "you can use headers or paragraphs, but how documents appear on the page isn't defined by the document, but by the renderer!" They wanted control. They wanted different coloured backgrounds. After a while, they got that. I went to what I believe was the first W3C meeting at which the idea of Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) was discussed. And argued vehemently against them. The suggestion that document writers should control layout was anathema.2 It took some while for CSS to be adopted, and in the meantime, those who cared about such issues adopted the security trainwreck that was Portable Document Format (PDF).
To say that the marketing department didn't like this was an understatement. 更糟的是布局问题。Even worse was the question of layout. "Browsers decide how to lay out documents," I explained, time after time, "你可以使用眉头词或者段落,但是文档在页面上如何显示并不取决于文档,而是you can use headers or paragraphs, but how documents appear on the page isn't defined by the document, but by the renderer!" They wanted control. They wanted different coloured backgrounds. After a while, they got that. I went to what I believe was the first W3C meeting at which the idea of Cascading Style Sheets 层叠样式表(CSS) was discussed. And argued vehemently against them. The suggestion that document writers should control layout was anathema.2 It took some while for CSS to be adopted, and in the meantime, those who cared about such issues adopted the security trainwreck that was Portable Document Format (PDF).
How documents were rendered wasn't the only issue. Being a publisher of actual physical books, the whole point of having a web presence, as far as the marketing department was concerned, was to allow customers—or potential customers—to know not only what a book was about, but also how much it was going to cost them to buy. This, however, presented a problem. You see, the internet—in which I include the rapidly growing World Wide Web—was an open, free-for-all libertarian sort of place where nobody was interested in money; in fact, where talk of money was to be shunned and avoided.
I took the mainstream "Netizen" view that there was no place for pricing information online. My boss—and, indeed, pretty much everybody else in the organisation—took a contrary view. They felt that customers should be able to see how much books would cost them. They also felt that my bank manager would like to see how much money was coming into my bank account on a monthly basis, which might be significantly reduced if I didn't come round to their view.
I took the mainstream "Netizen网民" view that there was no place for pricing information online. 我老板,加上组织里相当多的人都持有相反的看法My boss—and, indeed, pretty much everybody else in the organisation—took a contrary view. They felt that customers should be able to see how much books would cost them. They also felt that my bank manager would like to see how much money was coming into my bank account on a monthly basis, which might be significantly reduced if I didn't come round to their view.
Luckily, by the time I'd climbed down from my high horse and got over myself a bit—probably only a few weeks after I'd started digging my heels in—the web had changed, and there were other people putting pricing information up about their products. These newcomers were generally looked down upon by the old schoolers who'd been running web servers since the early days,3 but it was clear which way the wind was blowing. This didn't mean that the battle was won for our website, however. As an academic publisher, we shared an academic IP name ("ac.uk") with the University. The University was less than convinced that publishing pricing information was appropriate until some senior folks at the publisher pointed out that Princeton University Press was doing it, and wouldn't we look a bit silly if…?
Luckily, by the time I'd climbed down from my high horse and got over myself a bit—probably only a few weeks after I'd started digging my heels in—the web had changed, and there were other people putting pricing information up about their products. 新来的人渐渐瞧不起先前运行 web 服务器的老学究们,但风向很清晰。These newcomers were generally looked down upon by the old schoolers who'd been running web servers since the early days,3 but it was clear which way the wind was blowing. This didn't mean that the battle was won for our website, however. As an academic publisher, we shared an academic IP name ("ac.uk") with the University. The University was less than convinced that publishing pricing information was appropriate until some senior folks at the publisher pointed out that Princeton University Press was doing it, and wouldn't we look a bit silly if…?
The fun didn't stop there, either. A few months into my tenure as webmaster ("webmaster@…"), we started to see a worrying trend, as did lots of other websites. Certain visitors were single-handedly bringing our webserver to its knees. These visitors were running a new web browser: Netscape. Netscape was badly behaved. Netscape was multi-threaded.