CS101 Introduction to Computing

Lecture 4
The World Wide Web
During the Last Lecture …

We learnt about several important milestones

on the modern computing’s journey that
started with the Analytical Engine(history),
and as of today, has brought us to the hand-
held computer
 Today’s Goal is to …

 Become familiar with one of the most popular

activities on computers – the World Wide Web

 We want to become familiar with the Web’s

structure

 About how the Web works

 About its genesis, its evolution, and where it is

going
 What is the World Wide Web?
 A huge resource of information

 Logically unified, but physically distributed

 Logically unified: Any one from any where can access

the information using a very simple scheme consisting
of links & URLs(uniform resource locator)

 Physically distributed: The information is stored on

Internet-connected computers that are spread all over
the globe
Who is allowed to access the Web?
 Any one and every one with a computer
and a connection to the Internet

 No nationalistic, ideological, racial, or

religious restrictions

 In Pakistan, Web is accessible from any city

or town that has a phone available
The Web is unlike any previous
human invention.

Because it is a world-wide resource,

important to all of the people in the
world.
How do I visit a Web page?

1. Turn your computer on

2. Connect to the internet through a

modem or Local Area Network

3. Launch the browser (which in most

cases, will be the Internet Explorer)

4. Type in the URL of the Web page that

you want to visit
Browser
 Browser is the tool that we use to access the content of the
Web

 Browser and the content of the Web have the same

relationship as the TV has with cable programming

 1993 - The 1st major browser “Mosaic” was developed at

the National Center for Supercomputing Applications
(NCSA) at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign

 Initially handled text only, later graphics-viewing capability

was added
What is a URL?
 Uniform Resource Locator

 The unique address assigned to each unique

page on the Web
Examples

http://dawn.com

http://www.vu.edu.pk/

http://www.smeda.org.pk

(hyperText Transfer Protocol)

Are there any access charges?
 Most of the info on the Web is available for
free

 There is some for-payment content on the

Web, which is generally paid with the help of
a credit card
How do I navigate the Web?
 You go from one Web page to another by
clicking on a link
 Links

 The underlined pieces of text in blue are called

links

 Each link is a gateway to another Web page

 All you have to do is click on the link to go to the

page corresponding to that link
How many Web pages are there?
 In 1999 there were 800 million Web pages (15
terra (1012) bytes of text)

 In year 2002, the number is supposed to be 8

billion

 If you spend a minute reviewing each of these

pages, it will take more than 15,000 years to go
through them all
 What is secret behind the
explosive growth of the Web?

 Anarchy – any page is allowed to link to any other

 There are no controls over who puts what on the
Web
 Everyone can put whatever they want to put on
the Web – and they do!
 DRAWBACKS:
◦ Inconsistent quality of pages
◦ Broken links
The most popular Web sites?

 Microsoft – Most popular software developer’s Web

site
 Yahoo – Most popular multi-service Web site
 Amazon – most popular shop on the Web
 CNN – most popular news Web site
 Google – most useful search engine
What is a Web site?
 A collection of related documents available
on the Web

 The first portion of the URLs in the Web

pages of a Web site is the same e.g.
◦ http://www.cusit.edu.pk/
◦ www.cusit.edu.pk/cusitnew/departments.php?
dept=Department%20of%20Computer%20Science
◦ http://www.cusit.edu.pk/cusitnew/
empdetails.php?empid=0266
Are the URLs of three distinct Web pages on
a single Web site
What is a Web Search Engine?
 Search engines continuously scan the Web and
compile a list of all the Web pages that they
find

 The search engine with the largest such list (or

index) is Google – with a list of over 2 billion
Web pages and over 330 million images

 We use the search engine by typing a “search

key word” or “query” on its Web page. It looks
for those keyword in its index, and displays a
list of Web pages that contain that keyword
I know I can read off the Web. Am I
allowed to put my stuff on the Web?

 Yes. You just need to have a computer that is

hooked up to the Internet.

 You do not require anyone’s permission to put

your Web page(s) on the Web

 Your Web page will be available to all the millions

of users that have access to the Internet the
moment you place it on the Web
 ?
Internet ----
Web
 The “Internet” and the “Web” are not the same

 In fact, the “Web” is a service that runs over the

“Internet”. In addition to the Web, there are many
other services that run over the Internet.

 Internet is like the network of roads in a city,

whereas Web is a service like the Bus Service that
run over those roads. Just like other services can
use the roads (e.g. wagons), so can other
services on the Internet (e.g. ftp). We’ll have
more to say about this later in the course

 However, The following refer to the same thing:

◦ World Wide Web, Web, WWW
What info is available on the Web?
 Information about almost every thing
known to mankind.

 The info is in the form of:

◦ Text
◦ Graphics
◦ Animation
◦ Video
◦ Sound
Impact of the Web
on:
Computing
Society
Commerce
Impact of the Web on Computing
 Every one wants to use the Web
 That has spurred the demand for computers
 That, in turn, has reduced the cost of computing
drastically

 The computers are becoming easier to use

because the target users are becoming less and
less sophisticated
 In the olden times only techies used computers;
now 4-year old knows things about the machine
that I never did
Impact of the Web on Society

 User friendly communication has become much

more affordable – the global village is shrinking

 Business persons can stay in touch with their

businesses even without being there
Impact of the Web on Commerce
 Huge impact
 The moment I take my business to the Web, it
becomes possible for my customers to find
out about me without me being physically
present in their city

 Suddenly, I’m running a global business

Who invented the Web & Why?
 Tim Berners Lee – British physicist

 1989 – At the European Center for Nuclear

Energy Research (CERN) in Geneva

 He just wanted a way by which scientists could

easily share documents over a computer
network
The key weakness of the Web?
 The Web (as it currently exists) was designed for
human to read, not for computers to understand
and manipulate meaningfully

 Computers have a great problem in dealing with

the current text and graphics based Web

 Here is an example …
e.g..…

1:Name ADNAN

2:Member of research community at city

university Peshawar

3:live in Faisal Colony Peshawar

What’s the problem with this page?
 You (a human) see this page and
immediately understand what my name is
 How would a computer know the same fact?
 For that, the computer needs some help
 Some help in form of a statement:
◦ Name=“ADNAN”
◦ Occupation=“Member”
◦ Employer=“city university”
◦ And so on
The Future: The Semantic Web
What unique feature distinguishes the Web of today
with the Semantic Web of tomorrow?

Whereas, today’s Web’s content is designed for

humans to read; the Semantic Web’s content will be
designed for computers to understand meaningfully

However, the Semantic Web is not a replacement but

an extension of the present Web, in which
information is given well defined meaning
The Semantic Web
Some progress is already being made for adding
“Semantic Content” on to the Web, but a lot more
will happen in the next 5 years

To find further info about this exciting development

read Tim Berner Lee and his co-worker’s paper:
“The Semantic Web” that is available on the Web as:

http://www.sciam.com/2001/0501issue/0501berners-
lee.html
 Another useful Web page …

Web page for our “Understanding Computers” text

book

http://www.hbcollege.com/infosys/
parker2000