A group of computers connected to each other is a network. The worldwide connection of such computer network is known as Internet.
Let us use this simple day-to-day example to understand how the WWW works. We have all gone to a restaurant, maybe because we are really hungry or maybe just with mends. When we go to a restaurant, we sit NO and we look at the menu-card, then we tell the waiter to bring the .n we want. The waiter, himself does not cook. Instead, he goes to the kitchen, tells the cook to prepare our item, and then brings it to us, once it is cooked.
In the same way, we look at some hypertext in our web document, select it using a mouse and instruct the browser software to fetch the selected page. The browser (like the waiter) software then goes to the address contained in the link, connects to the server computer and requests for that page. The server services this request, and the browser displays that page us after formatting it.
In the Internet community, people believe in sharing their ideas and opinions with others. This is so mainly because it is an open forum that as no government and no restrictions at all. This policy of openness has d Internet-citizens to put up an enormous variety of hypertext documents on the Web. This has led to information of every kind being available to anybody who wants it.
The main reason behind the user-friendly environment of the WWW is HyperText. HyperText allows you to physically see one document linked another document. The even more magical reality of the Web is that it allows you to link not just text but also pictures, sound clippings and movies, which is called 'hypermedia'.
So far, we have understood a few terms related to the WWW, we shall now see how the entire transaction takes place.
Web software, like the browser or the software used by the server to search for a file is designed keeping the client-server model in mind. A browser (also called as Web client) as explained above is a program that can send requests for documents to any Web server. A Web server is a computer running a program that, upon receipt of a request, sends the document requested, back to the requesting client.
It may also be possible that the client program may be running on a completely separate machine from that of the server, possibly in another room or even in another country. Since the task of document storage is left to the server and the task of document formatting and presentation is left to the client, each program can concentrate on those duties and work independently of each other.
Because servers usually operate only when documents are requested, they put a minimal amount of workload on the computers they run on.
Here's an example of how the process works:
A user, who has a computer running browser software, selects a hyperlink in a piece of HyperText connecting to another document ¬The History of Computers, for example.
The Web client/browser uses the address associated with that hyperlink to connect to the Web server at a specified network address and asks for the document associated with The History of Computers.
The server responds by sending the text and any other media within that text (pictures, sounds, or movies) to the client, which the client formats and presents onto the user's screen.
The World-Wide Web is composed of thousands of these Virtual transactions taking place per hour throughout the world, creating a web of information flow.
The language that Web clients and servers use to communicate with each other is called the HyperText Transfer Protocol (HTTP). All Web clients I servers must be able to speak HTTP in order to send and receive Hypermedia documents. For this reason, Web servers are often called HTTP servers.
Though the Internet has been around since 1968-69, the WWW was born as recently as March 1989 and the credit of its development goes to Tim Berners-Lee while he was with an organisation
Answered by
Nishu%27s
, an ibibo Master,
at
3:39 PM on December 04, 2008
