Contrary to what the media would have you believe, the World Wide Web did not spring into being overnight. Though relatively new in human terms, the Web has a venerable genealogy for a computing technology. It can trace its roots back over 25 years, which is more than half the distance back to the primordial dawn of the electronic computing age.
However, the media is right in noting that the Web's phenomenal growth has so far outstripped that of any of its predecessors that, like a prize hog, it has left almost no room at the trough for any of them anymore. But like that prize hog, the Web is so much bigger and better and so much more valuable than the network technologies that preceded it, there is little reason to mourn the fact that they've been superseded.
In this chapter I'll discuss the history, development, and characteristics of the Web. You'll find out where it came from and what it's good for. If you're the impatient type and you just want to start using HTML to develop Web pages as quickly as possible, you can certainly skip this chapter and jump right in. However, as with all things, a little understanding of the background and underlying structure of the Web will not only enhance your enjoyment of and appreciation for what it is and what it can do, but it might even give you some insights into how to approach the development of your own Web sites.
The Web came out of the Internet, and it is both empowered and limited by the structure of the Internet. Today, most Web browsers include the capability to access other Internet technologies, such as Gopher, e-mail, and Usenet news, as well as the World Wide Web. So the more you know about the Internet as a whole, as well as the Web's place in it, the better you'll understand how to exploit the entire Net to its fullest potential.
Then, too, the Web and the Internet are more than just technology: they are an environment in which the members of an entire cyberculture communicate, trade, and interact. If you hope to establish your own Web site and make yourself a part of that culture, you'd better know what you're getting into. In a way, it's like moving to another country and trying to set up shop; if you don't speak the lingo and learn the customs, you'll never become a part of the community.
In this chapter, you learn about the following:
In 1962, Paul Baran, a researcher at the government's RAND think tank, described a solution to the problem in a paper titled "On Distributed Communications Networks." He proposed a nationwide system of computers connected together using a decentralized network so that if one or more major nodes were destroyed, the rest could dynamically adjust their connections to maintain communications.
If, for example, a computer in Washington, D.C., needed to communicate with one in Los Angeles, it might normally pass the information first to a computer in Kansas City, then on to L.A. But if Kansas City was destroyed or knocked out by an A-bomb blast, the Washington computer could reroute its communications through, say, Chicago instead, and the data would still arrive safely in L.A. (though too late to help the unfortunate citizens of Kansas City).
The proposal was discussed, developed, and expanded by various members of the computing community. In 1969, the first packet-switching network was funded by the Pentagon's Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA).
ARPAnet, as it was called, linked four research facilities: the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA), the Stanford Research Institute (SRI), the University of California at Santa Barbara (UCSB), and the University of Utah. By 1971, ARPAnet had grown to include 15 nodes; there were a grand total of 40 by 1972. That year also marked the creation of the InterNetworking Working Group (INWG), which was needed to establish common protocols for the rapidly growing system.
However, the media is right in noting that the Web's phenomenal growth has so far outstripped that of any of its predecessors that, like a prize hog, it has left almost no room at the trough for any of them anymore. But like that prize hog, the Web is so much bigger and better and so much more valuable than the network technologies that preceded it, there is little reason to mourn the fact that they've been superseded.
In this chapter I'll discuss the history, development, and characteristics of the Web. You'll find out where it came from and what it's good for. If you're the impatient type and you just want to start using HTML to develop Web pages as quickly as possible, you can certainly skip this chapter and jump right in. However, as with all things, a little understanding of the background and underlying structure of the Web will not only enhance your enjoyment of and appreciation for what it is and what it can do, but it might even give you some insights into how to approach the development of your own Web sites.
The Web came out of the Internet, and it is both empowered and limited by the structure of the Internet. Today, most Web browsers include the capability to access other Internet technologies, such as Gopher, e-mail, and Usenet news, as well as the World Wide Web. So the more you know about the Internet as a whole, as well as the Web's place in it, the better you'll understand how to exploit the entire Net to its fullest potential.
Then, too, the Web and the Internet are more than just technology: they are an environment in which the members of an entire cyberculture communicate, trade, and interact. If you hope to establish your own Web site and make yourself a part of that culture, you'd better know what you're getting into. In a way, it's like moving to another country and trying to set up shop; if you don't speak the lingo and learn the customs, you'll never become a part of the community.
In this chapter, you learn about the following:
- A short history of the Internet, the home of the Web
- What Net technologies existed before the Web, and how they work alongside the Web today
- How to decipher Internet e-mail addresses and domain names
- How and why the Web sprang so suddenly into being
- How the Web has quickly grown to reign supreme on the Net
- What's on the Web and why you'll want to develop a presence there
The Genealogy of the Web
In the late 1950s, at the height of the Cold War, the Department of Defense began to worry about what would happen to the nation's communications systems in the event of an atomic war. It was obvious that maintaining communications would be vital to the waging of a worldwide war, but it was also obvious that the very nature of an all-out nuclear conflict would practically guarantee that the nation's existing communications systems would be knocked out.In 1962, Paul Baran, a researcher at the government's RAND think tank, described a solution to the problem in a paper titled "On Distributed Communications Networks." He proposed a nationwide system of computers connected together using a decentralized network so that if one or more major nodes were destroyed, the rest could dynamically adjust their connections to maintain communications.
If, for example, a computer in Washington, D.C., needed to communicate with one in Los Angeles, it might normally pass the information first to a computer in Kansas City, then on to L.A. But if Kansas City was destroyed or knocked out by an A-bomb blast, the Washington computer could reroute its communications through, say, Chicago instead, and the data would still arrive safely in L.A. (though too late to help the unfortunate citizens of Kansas City).
The proposal was discussed, developed, and expanded by various members of the computing community. In 1969, the first packet-switching network was funded by the Pentagon's Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA).
| So What's Packet Switching? |
Packet switching is a method of breaking up data files into small pieces-usually only a couple of kilobytes or less-called packets, which can then be transmitted to another location. There, the packets are reassembled to re-create the original file. Packets don't have to be transmitted in order or even by the same route. In fact, the same packet can be transmitted by several different routes just in case some don't come through. The receiving software at the other end throws away duplicate packets, checks to see if others haven't come through (and asks the originating computer to try to send them again), sorts them into their original order, and puts them back together again into a duplicate of the original data file. Although this isn't the fastest way to transmit data, it is certainly one of the most reliable. Packet switching also enables several users to send data over the same connection by interleaving packets from each data stream, routing each to its own particular destination. Besides the original file data, data packets may include information about where they came from, the places they've visited in transit, and where they're going. The data they contain may be compressed and/or encrypted. Packets almost always also include some kind of information to indicate whether the data that arrives at the destination is the same data that was sent in the first place. |
ARPAnet, as it was called, linked four research facilities: the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA), the Stanford Research Institute (SRI), the University of California at Santa Barbara (UCSB), and the University of Utah. By 1971, ARPAnet had grown to include 15 nodes; there were a grand total of 40 by 1972. That year also marked the creation of the InterNetworking Working Group (INWG), which was needed to establish common protocols for the rapidly growing system.
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