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1. The WORLD-WIDE WEB
People have dreamt of a universal information database since
late nineteen forties. In this database, not only would the data
be accessible to people around the world, but it would also easily link to other pieces of information, so that only the most important data would be quickly found by a user. Only recently
the new technologies have made such systems possible. The
most popular system currently in use is the World-Wide Web
(WWW) which began in March 1989. The Web is an Internetbased computer network that allows users on one computer to
access information stored on another through the world-wide
network.
As the popularity of the Internet increases, people become
more aware of its colossal potential. The World-Wide Web is a
product of the continuous search for innovative ways of sharing
information resources. The WWW project is based on the principle of universal readership; "if information is available, then
any person should be able to access it from anywhere in the
world." The Web's implementation follows a standard clientserver model. In this model, a user relies on a program (the client) to connect to a remote machine (the server), where the data
is stored. The architecture of the WWW is the one of clients,
such as Netscape, Mosaic, or Lynx, "which know how to present
data but not what its origin is, and servers, which know how to
extract data", but are ignorant of how it will be presented to the
user.
One of the main features of the WWW documents is their
hypertext structure. On a graphic terminal, for instance, a particular reference can be represented by underlined text, or an
icon. "The user clicks on it with the mouse, and the referenced
document appears." This method makes copying of information unnecessary: data needs only to be stored once, and all referenced to it can be linked to the original document.
2. SUCCESS of the WWW
Set off in 1989, the WWW quickly gained great popularity
among Internet users. What is the reason for the immense success of the Wbrld-Wide Wfeb? Perhaps, it can be explained by
CERN's* attitude towards the development of the project. As
soon as the basic outline of the WWW was complete, CERN
made the source code for its software publicly available. CERN
has been encouraging collaboration by academic and commercial parties since the onset of the project, and by doing so it got
millions of people involved in the growth of the Wfeb.
The system requirements for running a WWW server are
minimal, so even administrators with limited funds had a chance to become information providers. Because of the intuitive nature of hypertext, many inexperienced computer users were able
to connect to the network. Furthermore, the simplicity of the
Hyper Text Markup Language, used for creating interactive
documents, allowed these users to contribute to the expanding
database of documents on the Web. Also, the nature of the
World-Wide Web provided a way to interconnect computers
running different operating systems, and display information
created in a variety of existing media formats.
In short, the possibilities for hypertext in the world-wide environment are endless. With the computer industry growing at
today's pace, no one knows what awaits us in the 21st century.
Note ________________________________________________
* CERN was originally named after its founding body the
'Conseil Europeen pour la Recherche Nucleaire,' and is
now called 'European Laboratory for Particle Physics*.
3. A BRIEF HISTORY of the INTERNET
In 1973 the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency
(DARPA) initiated a research program to investigate techniques
and technologies for interlinking packet networks of various
kinds. The objective was to develop communication protocols
which would allow networked computers to communicate transparently across multiple, linked packet networks. This was called
the Internetting project and the system of networks which
emerged from the research was known as the "Internet" (Intercontinental Network).
During the course of its evolution, particularly after 1989,
the Internet system began to intergrate support for other protocol suites into its basic networking fabric. By the end of 1991
the Internet has grown to include some 5000 networks in over
three dozen countries, serving over 700,000 host computers used
by over 4,000,000 people.
The bulk of the system today is made up of private networking facilities In education and research institutions, business and
in government organizations across the globe.
A secretariat has been created to manage the day-to-day
function of the Internet Activities Board (IAB) and Internet
Engineering Task Force (IETF). IETF meets three times a year in plenary and in approximately 50 working groups convene at
intermediate times by electronic mail, teleconferencing and at
face-to-face meetings.
There are a number of Network Information Centres (NICs)
located throughout the Internet to serve its users with documentation, guidance, advice and assistance. As the Internet continues to grow internationally, the need for high quality NIC functions increases. Although the initial community of users of the
Internet were drawn from the ranks of computer science and
engineering its users now comprise a wide range of disciplines
in the sciences, arts, letters, business, military and government
administration.