Web Technology

The web has certainly caused one of the most dramatic shifts in global communications in the last few decades. The Web and the Internet are often considered one and the same, but that is not correct. According to Wikipedia:

1. Internet: A publically-accessible worldwide system of interconnected computer networks - linked by copper wires, fiber-optic cables, wireless connections etc. - which transmit data by packet switching using a standardized Internet Protocol (IP). The Internet carries information and services, such as email, voice, online chat, and other documents of the World Wide Web.
2. Web: A global information space supporting a collection of interconnected documents, linked by hyperlinks and URLs using the Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP), and accessible through a large number of Internet-connected devices, such as computers, PDAs, and cell phones.

The initial Web was based on four basic ideas:

1. Hypertext: Documents throughout the web which are connected via hyperlinks.
2. Uniform Resource Identifiers: Protocol element consisting of a string of characters that conform to a certain syntax, used to describe a name or address.
3. Client-server model of computing: Relationship between two computer programs in which one program, the client, makes a service request from another program, the server, which fulfills the request. Provides a convenient way to interconnect programs that are distributed across different locations.
4. Markup language: Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) is a subset of SGML, and is the primary markup language used on the Web. XML (Extensible Markup Language) is also gaining popularity.

Web 2.0 is the next generation of web services and capabilities, and the technology infrastructure is complex and evolving. It includes server software, content syndication, messaging protocols, standards-based browsers with plugins and extensions, and various client applications. A website which characterizes Web 2.0 includes:

1. Unobtrusive Rich Internet Application techniques - RIA's are web applications that have the features and functionality of traditional desktop applications. They typically transfer the processing necessary for the user interface to the web client while keeping the bulk of the data (i.e maintaining the state of the program and the data) on the application server.
2. CSS - A stylesheet language used to describe the presentation of a document written in a markup language, such as XHTML.
3. Semantically valid XHTML markup - a markup language that has the same expressive possibilities as HTML, but a stricter syntax.
4. Syndication and aggregation of data in RSS/Atom - RSS and Atom are types of web feed formats, specified in XML.
5. Clean and meaningful URLs - Names which may include country codes, or extensions such as .edu that are more descriptive of the organization.
6. Weblog publishing - Blogging. Web-based self-publishing - a public diary of sorts.
7. Mashups - Websites or web application that integrate content from several sources into a unified user experience.
8. REST or XML Webservice APIs - Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) which which are structured for distributed systems like the Web. •