What is the WEB? Colloquially, the World Wide Web is often equated with the Internet,[1] but it is younger and represents only one of several possible uses of the Internet. Other Internet services such as e-mail, IRC or SSH are not integrated into the World Wide Web.
But what is the WEB? To call up content from the World Wide Web, a web browser is required, which runs on a PC or a smartphone, for example. It allows the user to download the data provided on any web server they choose and display it on a suitable output device, such as a screen or Braille display. The user can then follow hyperlinks on the displayed web page that point to other web pages, whether they are stored on the same web server or on a different one. This results in a worldwide network of web pages. Following the hyperlinks is also called “surfing the Internet”.
With the so-called Web 2.0, websites became popular from around the 2000s onwards whose content the user can not only view passively, as is the case with news sites, for example, but can also change and add to themselves, e.g. to publish their own content or to communicate with other users. These include blogs as private opinion pages, pages created by a loose community of authors according to the wiki principle, and social networks such as forums. Server-side techniques and (scripting) languages that implement this interactivity are primarily CGI, Python, ASP, Apache Wicket, JSF, ColdFusion, Ruby, PHP, and SSI. Client-side techniques that use filters, for example, to individualize content include CSS, JavaScript, or Java, with Java mainly used for platform-neutral execution of programs that are often loaded as Web applications over the Internet and communicate with Internet-based databases (e.g., SAP clients). With interactivity, the use of search engines became possible, supplementing the previously existing web directories and largely displacing them to this day.
With the increasing complexity of formats, protocols and techniques, new professions emerged, such as web designers and mediamaticians. Their tasks include programming content as well as evaluating user behavior in the context of log file analysis.
What is the WEB? The WWW was developed by Tim Berners-Lee and Robert Cailliau at the European research center CERN in Geneva in 1989, further developing known similar concepts.[2][3] Berners-Lee developed the HTTP network protocol and the text markup language HTML for this purpose. He also programmed the first web browser and the first web server software. He also operated the world’s first web server on his NeXTcube development computer. The overall concept was made freely available to the public in 1991 without any patenting or royalty payments, which contributed significantly to its importance today.
The world’s first website info.cern.ch was published on August 6, 1991.[4] A replica of this site can be reached via the following link:
info.cern.ch (Project description: https://first-website.web.cern.ch/first-website)
Finally, to explain, what is the WEB, the WWW led to comprehensive upheavals in many areas of life, often described as revolutionary, to the emergence of new economic sectors and to a fundamental change in communication behavior and media use. Regarding its cultural significance, together with other Internet services such as e-mail, it is sometimes equated with the invention of printing.
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