For some reason, in the early days of the web, email seemed like a logical choice to get input from users.
The first time I tried to have users fill out a form, what I did was that I sent them an exe file which contained a windows application that showed a form and saved the replies to a file. In the email I asked users to send me back that file. But no matter how I worded the email, 50% of users sent me back the exe file instead.
That problem was what triggered me to learn about server side code and databases.
And when that worked, it hit me: I could make a form that asked users about their favorite bands and suggest them new bands right away. This way the system would learn about all the bands of the world on its own and become better and better in suggesting music. This is how Gnoosic [1] was born. Later I adapted it for movies and called that Gnovies [2]. And for literature and called that Gnooks [3].
All 3 are still alive and keep learning every day:
Email was once the user interface for all remote services. Bitnet had nodes that responded to commands and performed operations that sent the results in email. For instance, you could send an email to "TRICKLE@TREARN" on Bitnet with a subject line: "GET ftp.funet.fi /pub/something" and the Trickle service at TREARN node would download the file over Internet, split it in chunks and would send it to you over Bitnet, so you'd effectively have FTP capability on Bitnet just with email.
I had written a user database called "Hitbase" (a very primitive Facebook) on a Fidonet network that responded to Netmail messages to a given node and sent the responses to the requesting address. That was in the 90's before Internet was accessible from homes.
My high school got email access for students in 1997 (New Zealand). We had to pay per megabyte for web browsing. There were services you could email URLs to, that would email you back a text rendering of the page. So I used that.
They had a fairly smart UI for following links. They would appear as footnotes and IIRC you could just hit reply, type the footnote number, and then send.
Lol "You emailed that you like sci-fi. We bet you'll like Alien, Bladerunner, and Close Encounters of the Third Kind!" Truly mind-blowing tech right there. How did they ever pull it off!
For some reason, in the early days of the web, email seemed like a logical choice to get input from users.
The first time I tried to have users fill out a form, what I did was that I sent them an exe file which contained a windows application that showed a form and saved the replies to a file. In the email I asked users to send me back that file. But no matter how I worded the email, 50% of users sent me back the exe file instead.
That problem was what triggered me to learn about server side code and databases.
And when that worked, it hit me: I could make a form that asked users about their favorite bands and suggest them new bands right away. This way the system would learn about all the bands of the world on its own and become better and better in suggesting music. This is how Gnoosic [1] was born. Later I adapted it for movies and called that Gnovies [2]. And for literature and called that Gnooks [3].
All 3 are still alive and keep learning every day:
[1] https://www.gnoosic.com
[2] https://www.gnovies.com
[3] https://www.gnooks.com
Email was once the user interface for all remote services. Bitnet had nodes that responded to commands and performed operations that sent the results in email. For instance, you could send an email to "TRICKLE@TREARN" on Bitnet with a subject line: "GET ftp.funet.fi /pub/something" and the Trickle service at TREARN node would download the file over Internet, split it in chunks and would send it to you over Bitnet, so you'd effectively have FTP capability on Bitnet just with email.
I had written a user database called "Hitbase" (a very primitive Facebook) on a Fidonet network that responded to Netmail messages to a given node and sent the responses to the requesting address. That was in the 90's before Internet was accessible from homes.
My high school got email access for students in 1997 (New Zealand). We had to pay per megabyte for web browsing. There were services you could email URLs to, that would email you back a text rendering of the page. So I used that.
They had a fairly smart UI for following links. They would appear as footnotes and IIRC you could just hit reply, type the footnote number, and then send.
Lol "You emailed that you like sci-fi. We bet you'll like Alien, Bladerunner, and Close Encounters of the Third Kind!" Truly mind-blowing tech right there. How did they ever pull it off!