Programming the World Wide Web

Today’s reading was a basic technical overview of things such as computers and the internet (I noticed hypertext made a second appearance). Other things such as URLS, web browsers, servers and IIS was talked about.

I recognized some of this stuff. Some from classes, some of the information I had seen on the internet, some I had guessed from other information I had. For instance I had a better understanding of the idea of document root and server root after I thought of how information is sometimes stored in certain types of programming. I understand the basics of servers – though I have heard some of my more software talented friends talk about them enough to know I don’t understand even half of it. For instance I know proxy servers are important for many games my friends like to play and I don’t understand those at all.

HTTP was the hardest thing to take in. It was a big information dump and I ended up reading some of the sections twice and looking over the tables. I know some things about HTTP 0- who hasn’t run into 404 errors and I did know about 200 ok before reading this – but most of the other stuff was foreign to me. But since this is how the web communicates I should at least know the basics. Even though I have little interest in this type of information it is always good to know the backbone of what I will be working on.