Article:
Having it both ways: Larry Wall, Perl and the technology and culture of the early web

Abstract

What image defines the 1990s web? Perhaps it is an “under construction” gif, a “starry night” background or some other fragment of what net artist and scholar Olia Lialina dubbed “a vernacular web” (2005). If not a vernacular, perhaps a sign of an increasingly commercial and professional web – the first banner ad, announcing that this particular information superhighway would be dotted with billboards and shopping malls, or a jutting line graph showing the precipitous rise of the Nasdaq composite index. Of course, the answer is both, or all of the above. The 90s web was defined by its contradictions: amateur and professional, playful and serious, free and incorporated. Early descriptions of the World Wide Web’s significance oscillated between, on the one hand, an accessible and open alternative to walled gardens like America Online, and on the other hand an electronic frontier ripe for commercialization


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BibTex
Stevenson, Michael: Having it both ways: Larry Wall, Perl and the technology and culture of the early web. In: Internet Histories. Digital Technology, Culture and Society, Jg. 2 (2018-10-04), Nr. 3-4, S. 264-280. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.25969/mediarep/14029.
@ARTICLE{Stevenson2018-10-04,
 author = {Stevenson, Michael},
 title = {Having it both ways: Larry Wall, Perl and the technology and culture of the early web},
 year = 2018-10-04,
 doi = "\url{http://dx.doi.org/10.25969/mediarep/14029}",
 volume = 2,
 address = {London},
 journal = {Internet Histories. Digital Technology, Culture and Society},
 number = 3-4,
 pages = {264--280},
}
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