World-Wide Web

• flexible way to deliver wide variety of information
• client/server protocol developed at CERN (particle physics lab in Geneva), Mosaic broswer developed at NCSA at Univ. of Il. Urbana-Champaign
• integrates multiple clients - gopher, ftp, netnews - in one browser
• uses graphically-rich HyperText Markup language (HTML)
• can support text-based client with some functional limitations
• servers run on a wide variety of platforms, including desktop computers
• documents can be made to look real nice!
• technical details
  • server varieties: NCSA, Netscape, secure servers
  • basic html (e.g. NJ-CIP home page versus the source HTML)
  • document types
  • security features: domain and password protection
  • "map" feature (e.g. this presentation)
  • forms and transactions
• strengths: very rich set of tools, easy for almost anyone to publish
• weaknesses: hard to find things, hard to tell what information is "official", VERY hard to tell what information is factually correct
• VERY good tool for publishing, can be used effectively for collaboration as well