OT question: URLs

[Arryn]

Gandalf Parker said:
And more in common with chaos theory, big bang expanding universe, and the theory of evolution.

Not to draw this OT, but your analogy is seriously skewed. For instance, evolution is about the forces of "natural selection", often deemed by laypersons as "survival of the fittest" (the actual subject is far more complex than that), to which the growth of the 'net has had little to do with some "selection of the best technologies". All too often, the technologies that come to dominate in the industry are far from the best that were under development. Most often, it's politics and power plays by various large corporations (as well as universities and government entities) that determine the course of the net's growth.

Next on your list (working backwards) is the Big Bang. The cause of the Bang is now thought to have been caused by a quantum instability, and the initial hyperinflationary expansion in the first tiny fraction of a microsecond another (very complex) quantum effect. None of which have any relation to the growth of the internet, not even by way of analogy. I won't bore you with the mathematics of the cosmology, but such math is fairly remote from the far more readily understood statistical concepts that underlie the growth of such things as the net, national populations, etc.

Finally, chaos theory relates more to describing the activity of the net, rather than its growth. The growth itself isn't a true chaotic process. It just might appear that way. It's actually quite predictable by non-chaos math.

The accurate statement you made is in regards to the growth not being an engineering / architectural process. It's a socio-political process.