Hi there! Let’s talk about the World Wide Web (WWW). Used by millions of people daily, the WWW, or simply the Web, makes vast amounts of information accessible to us. We've become used to the idea that everything is possible on the Web, from checking the weather to shopping at our favourite stores anytime. But how exactly is all of this possible?
First, is the WWW different from the Internet? The answer is yes. Although the terms "Internet" and "Web" are often used interchangeably, they are not the same thing. The Web is the largest application on the Internet, but the Internet itself includes much more than just the Web.
The Web is made up of special documents that display information on our devices. These documents are most commonly referred to as web pages. The Web is a system within the Internet that allows users to search for and access information. Web pages make up the WWW and are connected to each other through hypertext links or hyperlinks. These links allow users to navigate from one page to another while searching for information.
Web pages are hypertext documents, meaning they contain hyperlinks that connect to other pages. The Web was originally designed and developed at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) in the 1990s. The first prototype allowed scientists to share information between universities and research institutes around the world.
Web Evolution
The Web has evolved significantly since its invention at CERN.
Web 1.0: The read-only Web. Users could only read information, with no interaction or design elements.
Web 2.0: The read-write Web. Users could access and create content, and the Web became social with platforms like YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter.
Web 3.0: The read-write-execute Web. In this new iteration, computers can interpret information like humans through Artificial Intelligence.
A web page is a hypertext document that includes information in the form of text, images, video, and other media types. Every web page has a unique web address or URL (Uniform Resource Locator). This URL points to the IP address on the Internet where the information is stored and can be accessed. Hyperlinks point to the URL of the related web page we want to visit.
A website is a collection of multiple web pages. Web pages within the same site share the same domain name, much like sharing a last name within a family. A domain name is the unique, easy-to-remember name that appears after the @ sign in email addresses and after "www." in web addresses.
There is a vast amount of information on the Web. One device doesn't have enough memory to store all the millions of documents that make up the Web. So where does all this information live? Web servers.
Web servers are computers that are always connected to the Internet. They are specifically designed to store and share information.
Next week, we will discuss more about clients and servers.
Cheers, Irina 😊