How long did that website really take to make?

That snazzy website your looking at took a while to make didn’t it? What do you reckon? Maybe it took the developers a few months to make. Perhaps its taken them a few years of iterative development to create and perfect something more complex.

But what about everything else you’re using, ever given any thought on how long they all took to make?

Did you know that php, the language behind many sites you view was a year in the making before its initial release, mysql, the database engine that holds the data behind most sites has a near twenty year history. The initial versions of HTML and DNS were also a couple of years in the making and most of the web browsers you use have histories running back to the 90s.

In more recent history, Drupal and WordPress have both been in existance for nearly 12 years and even HTML 5 and CSS 3, the current cutting edge tools we have available to us have been in development for several years.

So next time you’re browsing that site full of cute cat pictures, connecting with old friends, shopping online or sharing what you just ate for breakfast, remember there’s nearly 30 years of work behind what you’re looking at. show some appreciation.

Image taken from here, which is a fascinating read.