Memories, memories

Java, Weird Stuff

I just found my own oldest webpage (handcoded) and my oldest public source code (Java) at once. Archive.org - that has hosted this long-dead memory since 1999 - is just so great.

Looking back at it, I realise that I was right in the thick of Internet development:

  • When I just started working with Java, we had to throw out all the printed Javadocs, because jdk1.0b2 was released and a lot of Java API (e.g. FTP and MAIL) from jdk1.0a3 has been hidden under sun’s internal packages
  • I did a first (alpha) implementation of standard servlet API for W3C’s Jigsaw server, by porting it from Sun’s Jeeves
  • I dabbled in hot 2.5D Apple technology (HotSause), by generating web server’s directory content in MCF format. The format has died, but apparently it turned into RDF. I was developing Semantic Web applications well before the term got popular.
  • I contributed to an Open Source project, well before SourceForge’s first appearance
  • I was a late-comer to /. and my ID is still below 36000

I am not bragging! I am just musing out loud at how much personal web history can be retrieved with few well placed searches.

The flip side of a coin of course, is that this history will not go away, even if I wanted it to. Which is why I do not link to my Slashdot account (and this is not an invitation for exercise in forensics). One just hopes that the future recruiter will look at timestamps of my various web appearances and makes appropriate adjustments to skills and effort.