The Basics of Web Development

The World Wide Web, also commonly referred to as the Web, is a collection of information systems that are interconnected by links, and can be accessed over the Internet. This collection of systems allows users from around the world to locate information on the Internet or to send electronic mail. Many people access the Web for business purposes. The Internet offers an extensive range of opportunities to advertise products and services and to make connections with customers.

Prior to the World Wide Web (WWW), there were two networks that had specific service domains. These domains included first-world wide web servers and local area network (LAN) servers. The Internet has evolved into a comprehensive system that includes national, regional, global, and international connections.

The first web server was the National Standards Association (USAS). The USAS was formed in response to the needs of network managers who were faced with managing large collections of data in a reliable and efficient manner. The association resolved that a uniform standard be developed for the management of information in this environment. The Uniform Resource Locator (URL) is the model that is used to determine locations on the Internet. A number of USAS member organizations developed and governed the W3C specification model, which became known as Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTML).

This W3C specification model enables web browsers to communicate with servers and web applications. The W3C terminology for describing a web browser includes a vocabulary of terms referred to as HTML tags. Various other terms and concepts such as hypertext, frameset, document, audio-video, form, and template are also used within the W3C HTML syntax. One of the most important aspects of the web is the use of scripts, which perform functions such as JavaScript code, to allow interactivity in a web page.

JavaScript script is one of the forms of markup language commonly used in web development. JavaScript is a kind of language that can be used to create interactive web pages by manipulating the underlying hardware. Some popular scripting languages being used in the web world include Java and Perl. Common scripts used in web browsers include HTML, CSS, JavaScript, Perl and PHP.

Websites run on a web server. The web server contains programs that run on the web server and send data to and from the websites that depend on it. A web server can either be a computer system or a network of machines. A web server can serve static files such as web pages, or it can serve dynamic information, such as web applications or web pages that change frequently. A web application is a piece of software designed to display web-pages in a graphical user interface (GUI) format.