The Book
Building the Web is a book about the history of web architecture: the ideas, systems, and trade-offs that shaped how we build for the web today.
It covers the arc from early HTTP servers and CGI scripts through application servers, caching layers, content delivery networks, and the distributed systems patterns that underpin modern web infrastructure.
This isn’t a tutorial or a how-to guide. It’s a history book for engineers: a look at why the web’s architecture evolved the way it did, what problems each generation of tools was trying to solve, and what we can learn from the decisions that got us here.
The Author
Paul Osman is a software engineer with experience building and operating web infrastructure at scale. This book grew out of years of working with evolving web technology and a deepening appreciation for the people behind the major leaps and the processes through which those leaps happened. Understanding how each generation of innovations built on the last is what this project is about.
This Site
Posts on this site are draft chapters and essays that will eventually become part of the book. Think of it as building in public. Feedback is welcome.