WWW: BACKGROUND INFORMATION
The purpose of this document is to provide background information on WWW (World- Wide Web), HTTP (Hypertext Transfer Protocol), and HTML (Hypertext Mark-up Language). Information regarding NCSA Mosaic and other WWW browsers, plus material on other important aspects of cyberspace such as gopher and WAIS is also covered. Please send any additions/comments to
whats-new@ncsa.uiuc.edu.
The World-Wide Web (W3) initiative is a practical project to bring a global information universe into existence using available technology. This article describes the aims, data model, and protocols needed to implement the "web", and compares them with the various contemporary systems.
Author: Tim Berners-Lee, Robert Cailliau, Jean-Francois Groff, Bernd Pollerman; Cern
This document is an introduction to the World Wide Web. It is intended to be a gentle primer for users who have heard of the Web and wish to learn more. It explains the concepts underlying the Web, and explains how to try it out for yourself. It is not intended to be a guide to providing information on the Web.
Author: Nathan Torkington
Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) is a protocol with the lightness and speed necessary for a distributed collaborative hypermedia information system. It is a generic stateless object-oriented protocol, which may be used for many similar tasks such as name servers, and distributed object- oriented systems, by extending the commands, or "methods", used. A feature of HTTP is the negotiation of data representation allowing systems to be built independently of the development of new advanced representations.
Author: Tim Berners-Lee; CERN
Many protocols and systems for document search and retrieval are currently in use, and many more protocols or refinements of existing protocols are to be expected in a field whose expansion is explosive. This paper discusses the requirements of a universal syntax which can be used to refer to objects available using existing protocols, and may be extended with technology. It makes a recommendation for a generic syntax, and for specific forms for "uniform Resource Locators" (URLs) of objects accessible using existing Internet protocols. The syntax has been in widespread use by World-Wide Web software since 1990.
Author: Tim Berners-Lee; CERN
Since the URL concept really pretty simple ("if it's out there, we can point at it"), this beginner's guide is just a quick walk through some of the more common URL types and should allow you to be creating and understanding URLs in a variety of contexts very quickly.
Author: Marc Andreessen
This draft presents a proposal for a light weight delivery format for browsing and querying information in a web of globally distributed hypertext, accessible over the internet. HTML+ embodies a pageless model making it suitable for efficient rendering on a wide range of display types. HTML+ is based upon SGML and represents document elements at a logical level, e.g. headers, paragraphs, lists, tables, and figures. Authors can choose to create HTML+ documents directly or to use filters to convert from other formats such as LaTeX, Framemaker, and Word for Windows.
Author: David Ragett; Hewlett Packard
This document is primer for producing documents in HTML, the markup language used by the World-Wide Web. An HTML quick-reference guide is also included.
Author: Michael Grobe, Academic Computing Services, The University of Kansas
This report summarizes the requirements of research and academic network users for network access to multimedia information. It does this by investigating some of the projects planned or currently underway in the community. Existing information systems such as Gopher, WAIS and World-Wide Web are examined from the point of view of multimedia support, and some interesting hypermedia systems emerging from the research community are also studied. Relevant existing and developing standards in this area are discussed. The report identifies the gaps between the capabilities of currently-deployed systems and the user requirements, and proposes further work centered on the World-Wide Web system to rectify this.
Author: Chris Adie; Edinburgh University Computing Service, Great Britain
This document offers a good, non-technical introduction to the World-Wide Web, the Internet, and various multimedia and hypermedia issues. In addition to offering a brief introduction to NCSA Mosaic and other WWW browsers, this document also lists several resources for additional information.
Author: Kevin Hughes; Honolulu Community College