Thinking on the Web: Berners‐Lee, Godel and Turing

Citation

Howard, W.R. (2009), "Thinking on the Web: Berners‐Lee, Godel and Turing", Kybernetes, Vol. 38 No. 6, pp. 1036-1036. https://doi.org/10.1108/03684920910973261

The title suggests that, as reviewers, we have been down this path before. Tim Berners‐Lee has made his views known in many ways and recently he has expressed his concerns about the web and its future. They could, of course, be the subject of an other “best‐seller”. There is a great deal of concern from thinkers about the world wide web and in particular its current direction and what it will be used for. Despite its almost infinite possible applications, new additions seem to be added almost every day. The authors of this book are really concerned with what are described as “intelligent web services” as opposed, we would assume, to all those other activities that are constantly being publicised. This text is really a review of what its writers believe are such online services of the future. Most lie in the areas of science and of business although it is very difficult to construct such boundaries when discussing applications on the web.

Rather than discuss the actual prospective services it is better to take the authors title as an indication of what they wish to achieve by writing their book. They want to show how by using Turing's well publicised test, Godel's theorem and the semantic “Web logic” of Berners‐Lee, we can seriously discuss what “thinking” about “thinking on the Web” really implies. They give a view which is well‐worth considering and also an insight into their own “thinking” about current and future web services. The book will stimulate our thoughts because it is developed on a sound foundation of logic. Many services are considered in some detail viz. Businesses functioning online; games; innovative search methods and accessibility to reliable information. The book brims with information and with such an innovative approach is likely to appeal to developers of the web as well as to so many of its “thinking” users.