Demystifying Web Jargons Part - 1
Tags: webdev, codenewbie
Published: 2021-06-20 12:55:46


I have come to a realization that the world of the web is filled with so many jargons that are so commonly thrown around and that makes it really difficult and scary for someone new who trying to enter it. I will try to make you understand some of the jargon today.

  

Let's start with one of the most common words. I think everyone would have come across a URL. So what does it actually mean?

  

### URL

When we want to fetch some webpage we type an address in the browser's address bar. This address looks something like <em>https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page</em> . This address is termed as a uniform resource locator or URL in short. A URL consists of a <strong>protocol, domain</strong> and <strong>path</strong>. Let's see what this means.

  

![URL-Format](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/tj6dzixytcfd1eiikvps.png)

  

#### Protocol

To communicate over the internet, we need to ensure that the data we are sending is sent in a safe manner and the intended recipient is able to get that data and understand it. To achieve this, browsers across the world follow a specified set of rules which we call <em>Protocol</em>. The internet is based on a protocol called TCP/IP (Transmission control protocol/Internet protocol). The most commonly used protocols are HTTP and HTTPS which are both built on top of TCP/IP protocol. These are all set of rules which governs the data we send over the internet.

  

#### Domain

All the devices that are connected over the internet are given an IP address. An IP address is a unique set of numbers used to identify a device. Think of it as a phone number of a person. Each person will have a unique phone number. Similarly, each device connected to the internet will have a unique IP address. To communicate with any device we need to know its IP address. But working with IP addresses is very hard as it's just a set of numbers that don't mean anything. So to make it easier, we map IP addresses to a keywords like <em> wikipedia</em> or <em>google</em>. These keywords are called as <em> Domain </em> and each <em> Domain </em> is mapped to a specific IP address. The service that maps a domain to and IP address is called <em>Domain Name service</em> or <em> DNS </em> in short.

  

#### Path

To display a webpage, the browser needs a certain set of resources. The path represents the path of these resources in the machine that is given to us from the domain. This resource can be an HTML file, an image file, or even a video file. HTML files are traditionally the most popular resource.

  

Now we know how a web address is formed. But what is there in that address? We cannot just call any computer for the resources for our webpage. We all might have heard of the term <strong> Server </strong>. We always say Wikipedia server and google server. Let's now see what a server is.

  

  

### Server

There are various kinds of devices connected to the internet. From smartphones to printers to cars to the computer. But most of these devices are using the internet to fetch some resources. There are some certain kinds of computers connected to the internet, which are constantly listening for any new requests. Once they get this request, they will respond with the corresponding resource. These computers which are listening for the requests are called as <em>Server</em> and all the devices that requirest these resource are called a <em>Client</em>. Even a server can call other servers to get the required resource hence acting both as a server and a client. The servers that return HTML web pages are called web server.

  

### HTML

We have already used HTML a couple of times in this article. But what is HTML? HTML stands for <strong>HyperText Markup Language</strong>. Ok, so we now know that HTML is a language. But what is <em>Hypertext</em> and <em>Markup</em> ?

  

#### Hypertext

<em>Hypertext</em> is simply a text which can have address (or URL) to other resources. This is the property of HTML that helps us to navigate from one screen to another as when we click on these hypertext links we are navigated to a new HTML file (modern-day web applications work differently but that is a topic for another day).

  

#### Markup Language

<em>Markup</em> is a style of writing the language where characters are enclosed by special symbols and these special characters have special meaning and property.

  

#### CSS

Before wrapping up for this article, I just wanted to mention what <em> CSS </em> is as well as it is commonly used along with HTML. <em>CSS</em> stands for Cascading Style Sheets. The name itself is very confusing. Let me try to explain it. HTML in itself is just a text language. You can have some decorations with markup but to look like any of the modern web pages you need too much more than that. This is where CSS comes into the picture. CSS basically takes care of all the styling in an HTML document.

  

That's it for today guys. If you liked what you have read, please do share it with your friends. I have written it in such a way that it should be understood by even people from non-technical backgrounds like your managers. Thanks for reading.