Setting Up GitHub: A Web Publishing Experience

Setting up Github and Github pages was a fascinating experience into modern online publishing. I was fortunately already familiar with the basic fundamentals of the GitHub platform like creating a repository and making a commit. These concepts are now essential to web development and demonstrated the evolution of web publishing from the manual HTML file transfers of the earlier days to the more recent automated tools. Reading through the various readings has given me an interesting view on how the evolution of the internet.

The Evolution of Web Technology

Many aspects of the modern intern seem to have been accurately predicated by by Borges (1941). His idea of an endless library with every possible letter combination reflects the information overload we face daily. We face similar difficulties in the era of search engines and social media just like Borges' librarians did when they were trying to locate relevant material among the many choices.

According to The History of the Web (2017) Flash's history from 1995 to 2020 provides an engaging account of the development of online technologies. It started out as a technique to create interactive content while HTML was still in its early stages, spread widely thanks to websites like YouTube, and finally gave way to open web standards. Through these readings I have noticed a trend in web tech: innovation, adoption, and then replacement.

Interesting Facts I learned from the Readings

I learned a few fascinating facts from these readings that altered the way I view the internet. The concepts of web and hypertext existed way before there was technology that was able to support them. Vannevar Bush's Memex vision of (1945) paralles Borges' (1941) Library of Babel. Both of them visualised systems for organising and connecting large amounts of information.

Goals for this Course:

With platforms like GitHub pages, the modern web development landscape represents both return and evolution of web's origins. I am looking forward to learning more about how technologies come and go, and learn how to build these platforms, being part of this ongoing evolution of how we access and share information online. I also want to be proficient in reactive web development together with version control like GitHub. Making content accessible, finding a balance between usefulness and simplicity, and developing general standards are all issues that early web developers faced in the olden days; that modern developers still face today. Knowing this history makes it easier for me to recognize the fundamental issues that still exist as well as the progress we've made.