Some of the current success of the Internet is undoubtedly because of the emergence of the World Wide Web in the last decade . The phenomenal success of the Web has made the Internet accessible to so many people that it has become synonymous with the Internet. Of course, the Internet itself has been around for a while and was used by mostly engineers , researchers, and technical people before the introduction of the Web browsers and the World Wide Web. For a complete history of the World Wide Web, refer to the W3C Web site (www.w3c.org). W3C (World Wide Web Consortium) is the body that is defining the standards and ensuring the evolution of the Web. But is the World Wide Web the Internet? Not really; the Web is merely an application on the Internet. A good definition of the Web comes from W3C, which defines the Web as the universe of network-accessible information (available through your computer, phone, television, or networked refrigerator). The concept of the Web originated at CERN (European Organization for Nuclear Research) in Switzerland in 1989 and was the idea of Tim Berners-Lee, who is considered the inventor of the Web. The proposal of using hypertext for information distribution/linking and management was the basis from which the Web was developed. Over the course of the last 10 years , the concept has been refined and has been developed into a global-scale application. Since the Web is essentially an application on the Internet, some of the design principles that have been taken into account are based on the principles on which the Internet has been established:
We can think of the Web as a set of cooperating clients and servers. The window to the Web for most people is via graphical user interface applications known as Web browsers (such as Netscape or Internet Explorer). The World Wide Web is different things to different people. Some think of the Web as a source of information; others think of it as a place to shop or conduct financial transactions; still others think of it as a source of entertainment, including music, audio, and video. What ties the Web together is the use of a common protocol, which in this case is HTTP. From the stack perspective, HTTP is an application-layer protocol that runs over TCP. HTTP is a text-oriented request response protocol. Another protocol for interacting with the Web has been developed for the wireless industry. The protocol, known as WAP (Wireless Application Protocol), allows wireless devices such as mobile phones and PDAs to access the Internet. WAP is discussed in much further detail in Chapter 13. The Web and the Internet have become a utility service that is as ubiquitous as the telephone, and the next expansion in this area is essentially in the area of wireless networks and users connecting to the Web via devices that are no longer tethered. |