Programming the World Wide Web

This chapter from the book really showed me the separation of the "Internet" and the "World Wide Web." The book defines the Internet as "a collection of computers and other devices connected by equipment that allows them to communicate with each other" and the World Wide Web as "a collection of software and protocols that has been installed on most, if not all, the computers on the Internet." These definitions really helped me to understand  the differences between the two. The Internet is the technology and infrastructure and  the Web is the information and ideas.

This reading goes on to explain a surplus of useful information about the Web, URL, HTTP, MIME, XHTML, etc. There was so much information that is was a bit hard to absorb it all for once, but it did help me to have a better understanding on how everything works, which I think is a very important information to know if we are going to be designing websites ourselves. It is important to learn HOW and WHY everything works the way it does if you are going to be working with the Web.

One thing that I found very helpful in this reading was the part where Sebesta talked about clients and servers. I'm not going to lie, I know very little about the Internet and how it does what it does, so this reading really opened my eyes to the complexity of it all. I always knew that it was complex and beyond my understanding, but even getting a little taste of how it works, makes me feel like I can appreciate it a bit more.  The "Web Metrics" page you had us look at was extremely confusing to me. I didn't really know what was going on so hopefully when we discuss it in class I will have a better understanding.