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The Web That Never Was - Dylan Beattie

NDC Conferences · talk · Watch on YouTube

Web developmentHistory of computingSoftware (other)

What it is

Dylan Beattie's entertaining NDC talk imagines an alternate history of the web, asking what if different decisions had been made on operating systems, browsers and standards. It blends real history with humor.

Why Hacker News recommends it

HN commenters strongly recommend it as a fun alt-history of the web and bring it up whenever people muse about how the web could have been different.

  • 3 people recommended it
  • 4 different months
  • 3 strong recommendations
  • first 2023, last 2026

What HN commenters said

  1. “Edit 2: finished, it is definitely worth watching.”

    Entertaining alt-history talk with Kildall/IBM story.

    AlbertoGP, 2023-12 · Strong recommendation · in “Poor Man's Web”

  2. “Then you'll especially love Dylan Beattie's talk on this exact subject, regarding an alt-history take on the web.”

    Alt-history take on the web.

    x-complexity, 2024-08 · Strong recommendation · in “Blitz: A lightweight, modular, extensible web renderer”

  3. “You might enjoy this talk by Dylan Beattie, it explores that kind of alternate history.”

    Explores alternate history of the web.

    taejavu, 2024-01 · Recommendation · in “Was Javascript really made in 10 days?”

Excerpts from Hacker News comments, linked to the originals. Summaries and labels were written by a language model from those comments.

Topics: web history, alternate history, microsoft, javascript, dylan beattie

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