The Internet
Read a brief history of the Internet here 

The World Wide Web

Origins | The Internet |The Web |
More about the Internet (click on the back button of your browser to return to this page): 

- Packet switching & TCP/IP protocols
- A short history of the Internet

Also see these pages:

- Seven good reasons to use the WWW
- How to surf the Web
- Where are the websites, anyway?
- Build your own webpage
- An educational tool

  The World Wide Web, also called WWW, or simply the Web, is probably the most user-friendly part of the Internet, and definetely the favourite of millions of users worldwide. It is a massive database of information. It contains million sof websites, with all kinds of information: not only written documents, but also photographs, music, videos, pictures,games and animations. Some have defined it as a world library, although a little untidy and often not very reliable.
Whatever you consider it, one thing is sure, it has become a primary source of information for all.

 

How it works
(Source: notes from a lecture given at ITC Denina by Stefania Romagnolo, 2001)

 The World Wide Web architecture is based on client-server interaction that uses the HTTP (Hyper-Text Transfer Protocol) protocol to handle the connection. The HTTP was originally invented by Tim Barners-Lee in 1992 and later a number of versions have been implemented.
  Software Hardware
Client browser User's PC
Server web server Host computer

The table above describes the four main components of the client-server interaction. What happens is that the user needs a browser installed on his computer to view the contents of the Web: this is the client-side equipment. On the server side you have a program called "Web Server" installed on a computer where the websites are.

The client is your local computer (the user's) and the browser is the program that:
- receives and runs the user's commands
- makes requests to the server to get documents
- interprets the code language (usually Html) and shows the document in such a way that you can read it.

The server is the remote computer where the websites are phisically located, and what the web server does is:
- handle the documents
- retrieve the documents
- send the documents requested by the client

By means of links or an URL (Uniform Resource Locator, the so-called Internet address), the client makes a HTTP request to the server, which in its turn will send the client all the objects that compose the document requested.

The most common formatting language of the Web is HTML (Hyper Text Mark-up Language) but there are also others, like XML or SGML.