world-wide web

world-wide web \world"-wide` web"\, n.
   The collective total of all computer installations that are
   connected to the internet and provide access to other
   computers connected to the internet, using {hypertext
   transfer protocol}, to computer files called web pages, which
   may have text, graphics, audio or animated video data, as
   well as pages which may provide data or information in all
   those forms.

   Syn: Web, the web, WWW.
        [PJC]
    

World-Wide Web
WWW

   <World-Wide Web, networking, hypertext> (WWW, W3, The Web) An
   {Internet} {client-server} {hypertext} distributed information
   retrieval system which originated from the {CERN} High-Energy
   Physics laboratories in Geneva, Switzerland.

   An extensive user community has developed on the Web since its
   public introduction in 1991.  In the early 1990s, the
   developers at CERN spread word of the Web's capabilities to
   scientific audiences worldwide.  By September 1993, the share
   of Web traffic traversing the {NSFNET} {Internet} {backbone}
   reached 75 {gigabytes} per month or one percent.  By July 1994
   it was one {terabyte} per month.

   On the WWW everything (documents, menus, indices) is
   represented to the user as a {hypertext} object in {HTML}
   format.  {Hypertext} {links} refer to other documents by their
   {URLs}.  These can refer to local or remote resources
   accessible via {FTP}, {Gopher}, {Telnet} or {news}, as well as
   those available via the {http} protocol used to transfer
   {hypertext} documents.

   The client program (known as a {browser}), e.g. {NCSA}
   {Mosaic}, {Netscape} {Navigator}, runs on the user's computer
   and provides two basic navigation operations: to follow a
   {link} or to send a query to a server.  A variety of client
   and server software is freely available.

   Most clients and servers also support "forms" which allow the
   user to enter arbitrary text as well as selecting options from
   customisable menus and on/off switches.

   Following the widespread availability of web browsers and
   servers, many companies from about 1995 realised they could
   use the same software and protocols on their own private
   internal {TCP/IP} networks giving rise to the term
   "{intranet}".

   The {World Wide Web Consortium} is the main standards body for
   the web.

   An article by John December
   (http://sunsite.unc.edu/cmc/mag/1994/oct/webip.html).

   A good place to start exploring
   
(http://ncsa.uiuc.edu/SDG/Software/Mosaic/StartingPoints/NetworkStartingPoints.html).

   WWW servers, clients and tools
   (http://w3.org/hypertext/WWW/Status.html).

   Mailing list: <[email protected]>.

   Usenet newsgroups: news:comp.infosystems.www.misc,
   news:comp.infosystems.www.providers,
   news:comp.infosystems.www.users,
   news:comp.infosystems.announce.

   The best way to access {this dictionary} is via the Web since
   you will get the latest version and be able to follow
   cross-references easily.  If you are reading a plain text
   version of this dictionary then you will see lots of curly
   brackets and strings like

   	(http://hostname/here/there/page.html).

   These are transformed into hypertext links when you access it
   via the Web.

   See also {Java}, {webhead}.

   (1996-10-28)