Nora TindallSep 11, 2023

Let's do an experiment! If you're *not* a professional or habitual programmer, I'd love to hear what you know about what happens between typing a web address like "example.com" into your web browser and actually seeing the page show up. Whatever level of abstraction and verbosity you're comfortable with.

Tech folks: absolutely no making fun of people for being wrong, okay? People are allowed to not know stuff!

Boosts appreciated, but only if you're interested in frivolity 💜

Show threadButternuts 🦆Sep 11, 2023

@noracodes i'm a programmer *now* and have also set up servers, but I can tell you about *before*, when i was a kid:

i've been computering most of my life, and somehow never got weirded out by the dos prompt, just accepted that you can type a specific command that makes it go, no conceptual difference with a button, really.

so fastforward to Internet Explorer 3, i also just accepted that you can type a command (the url) an have the program do a thing, just getting it from "The Online".

Show threadwb x64
@batterpunts @noracodes my partner definitely thought that there's just one big database with everything, like the DMV or how you sign up to get an email address from Google, and also thought that the Internet was all based on satellites. The idea of copper and fiber cables crisscrossing the entire planet was deeply disturbing to them lol
Sep 11, 2023 at 8:09pmWeb
Show threadButternuts 🦆Sep 11, 2023
@wilbr @noracodes it's still disturbing to me that there's straight up cables across the deep ocean floor