Introduction To Web Developing

                                              Introduction to Web Developing

The major growth of the Internet came with the development of HTML, the Hypertext Markup Language, and programs (browsers) that could read and display those documents. This gave rise to the World Wide Web (commonly known as WWW). Nowadays HTML documents, also called web pages, in addition to text, can also contain images, movie clips, sound clips, animations and much more.

During its short history, the Internet has grown exponentially. People are using the Internet not only for daily tasks such as checking and sending emails (communication) and searching for information but are also creating their personal and business web sites or writing their hearts out on a blog.

The Internet is now a global network of networks. Which means it consists of many smaller networks. The number of computers linked on these smaller networks can range from 2-3 in a small Intranet to thousands of machines in big organizations. No one knows the exact number of computers connected to the Internet, because this figure keeps changing and is increasing with each hour.

                                                          The World Wide Web

It came into existence with the introduction of browsers, the first one being Mosaic. The browser provided ease of use with graphical display and was able to show images with text. Hyperlinking between documents broke the linear architecture.

The browser was able to provide the user with a range of experiences - pictures, multimedia (sound. video) and interactivity. The web also allowed for the integration of pages with databases that resulted in dynamically generated content - content that is picked up from the database and integrated into HTML pages or HTML templates.

The Internet has been put to a variety of uses. Though it started primarily as a medium to facilitate data exchange, it is now employed for information search and retrieval. communication via email, chat and voice, commerce and business processes and much more.

                                 Internet fundamentals and basics guide

The Internet started as a small government project in the United States of America back in 1970s. The Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) linked their computers to ease the transfer of data. This network came to be known as ARPANET and is the birthplace of the Internet.

The Internet is now a huge global network of computers. It is not just one network but consists of thousands of other networks worldwide. No one knows how many computers are connected to the Internet because each day several new machines are added and some old ones taken off.

Numerous people and organizations around the globe own the different computers linked to the Internet. Hence, no one is actually in-charge of the Internet. Private companies (government agencies, in some countries) own the Internet backbone through which information flows and various organizations develop the technical aspects of this network.

                                                Email - Internet Fundamentals

The rapid development of the Internet can be attributed to the immense popularity of email. Email has been the most used Internet application because it has revolutionized the way we communicate. Email messages can be received almost instantly and can include images, video and sound in addition to text. Furthermore, interactive emails can be created using HTML.

      The World Wide Web (WWW) basics and fundamentals

The World Wide Web (also known as the Web, WWW or W3) is a system of Internet servers through which several Internet protocols can be accessed using a single interface (your browser). Almost all protocols available on the Internet are available on the Web. This creates a convenient and user-friendly environment through which email, FTP, Telnet, Usenet News etc. can be accessed. Because of this and also because of the ability of the Web to work with multimedia and advanced programming languages, the World Wide Web has been the fastest growing and the most interesting part of the Internet.

Note: The World Wide Web is a subset of the Internet.

                                    The World Wide Web's HTTP Protocol

One of the most famous and popular protocols on the web is the HyperText Transfer Protocol (HTTP). Hypertext documents contain links that connect to other documents or files. The user can activate these links or 'hot spots' (through a mouse button click, for example) and the target document will then be transferred on to the client machine and if its a web page, it would be displayed in the browser. These 'hot spots' are created using the Hypertext ^-Markup and can be placed' as text, pictures etc. A single
HyperText document can contain many such hyperlinks. Because of all this "linking", a virtual web of connections is created.