WORLD WIDE WEB (Insights)

WORLD WIDE WEB

• an information system on the internet that allows documents to be connected to other documents by hypertext links, enabling the user to search for information by moving from one document to another
• The World Wide Web has been central to the development of the Information Age and is the primary tool billions of people use to interact on the Internet.   Web page are primarily text documents formatted and annotated with Hypertext Mark up Language (HTML). In addition to formatted text, web pages may contain images, video, audio, and software components that are rendered in the user's web browser as coherent pages of muiltimedia content.The World Wide Web (abbreviated WWW or the Web) is an information space where documents and other web resources are identified by Uniform Resources Locator (URLs), interlinked by hypertext links, and can be accessed via the Internet. English scientist Tim Berner-Lee invented the World Wide Web in 1989. He wrote the first web browser computer program in 1990 while employed at CERN in Switzerland. The Web browser was released outside CERN in 1991, first to other research institutions starting in January 1991 and to the general public on the Internet in August 1991. Embedded hyperlinks permit users to navigate between web pages. Multiple web pages with a common theme, a common domain name, or both, make up a website. Website content can largely be provided by the publisher, or interactively where users contribute content or the content depends upon the users or their actions. Websites may be mostly informative, primarily for entertainment, or largely for commercial, governmental, or non-governmental organisational purposes.

Web Pages

• a hypertext document connected to World Wide Web. It is a document that is suitable for the World Wide Web.
• A web page (also written as webpage) is a document that is suitable for the World Wide Web and web browser. A web browser displays a web page on a monitor or mobile device. The web page usually means what is visible, but the term may also refer to a computer file, usually written in HTML or a comparable markup language Web browsers coordinate various web resources elements for the written web page, such as style sheet, script, and images, to present the web page. Typical web pages provide hypertext that includes a navigation bar or a side bar menu linking to other web pages via hyperlinks often referred to as links. On a network, a web browser can retrieve a web page from a remote web browser The web server may restrict access to a private network such as a corporate intranet. The web browser uses the Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) to make such requests. A static web page is delivered exactly as stored, as web content in the web server's file system. In contrast, a dynamic web page is generated by a web application, usually driven by server-side software. Dynamic web pages help the browser (the client) to enhance the web page through user input to the server. 

Websites

• a location connected to the Internet that maintains one or more pages on the World Wide Web.
• A website is a collection of related web pages, including multimedia content, typically identified with a common domain name, and published on at least one web server. A website may be accessible via a public Internet Protocol (IP) network, such as the Internet, or a private local area network (LAN), by referencing a uniform resource locator (URL) that identifies the site. Websites can have many functions and can be used in various fashions; a website can be a personal website, a corporate website for a company, a government website, an organization website, etc. Websites are typically dedicated to a particular topic or purpose, ranging from entertainment and social networking to providing news and education. All publicly accessible websites collectively constitute the World Wide Web, while private websites, such as a company's website for its employees, are typically a part of an intranet.Web pages, which are the building blocks of websites, are documents, typically composed in plain text interspersed with formatting instructions of Hypertext Markup Language (HTML, XHTML). They may incorporate elements from other websites with suitable markup anchors. Web pages are accessed and transported with the Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP), which may optionally employ encryption (HTTP Secure, HTTPS) to provide security and privacy for the user. The user's application, often a web browser, renders the page content according to its HTML markup instructions onto a display terminal.Hyperlinking between web pages conveys to the reader the site structure and guides the navigation of the site, which often starts with a home page containing a directory of the site web content. Some websites require user registration or subscription to access content. Examples of subscription websites include many business sites, news websites, academic journal websites, gaming websites, file-sharing websites, message boards, web-based email, social networking websites, websites providing real-time stock market data, as well as sites providing various other services. As of 2017, end users can access websites on a range of devices, including desktop and laptop computers, tablet computers, smartphones and smart TVs.

Web Browser

• a software application for retrieving presenting, and traversing information resources on the World Wide Web.
• A web browser (commonly referred to as a browser) is a software application for retrieving, presenting and traversing information resources on the World Wide Web. An information resource is identified by a Uniform Resource Identifier (URI/URL) that may be a web page, image, video or other piece of content. Hyperlinks present in resources enable users easily to navigate their browsers to related resources. Although browsers are primarily intended to use the World Wide Web, they can also be used to access information provided by web servers private networks or files in file systems.

Static Web Page

• Static web page is known as flat page or stationary page in sense that the page is ''as is'' and cannot be manipulated by the user. The content is also the same for all users that is referred to as Web 1.0
• A static website contains Web pages with fixed content. Each page is coded in HTML and displays the same information to every visitor. Static sites are the most basic type of website and are the easiest to create. Unlike dynamic websites, they do not require any Web programming or database design. A static site can be built by simply creating a few HTML pages and publishing them to a Web server. Since static Web pages contain fixed code, the content of each page does not change unless it is manually updated by the webmaster. This works well for small websites, but it can make large sites with hundreds or thousands of pages difficult to maintain. Therefore, larger websites typically use dynamic pages, which can be updated by simply modifying a database record. Static sites that contain a lot of pages are often designed using templates. This makes it possible to update several pages at once, and also helps provide a consistent layout throughout the site.

Dynamic Web Page

• The user is able to see website differently than other social networking sites, wikis, video sharing sites. Web 2.0 allows users to interact with the page, the user may able to comment or create a user account.
• A server-side dynamic web page is a web page whose construction is controlled by an application server processing server-side scripts. In server-side scripting, parameters determine how the assembly of every new web page proceeds, including the setting up of more client-side processing. A client-side dynamic web page processes the web page using HTML scripting running in the browser as it loads. JavaScript and other scripting languages determine the way the HTML in the received page is parsed into the Document Object Model, or DOM, that represents the loaded web page. The same client-side techniques can then dynamically update or change the DOM in the same way. A dynamic web page is then reloaded by the user or by a computer program to change some variable content. The updating information could come from the server, or from changes made to that page's DOM. This may or may not truncate the browsing history or create a saved version to go back to, but a dynamic web page update using Ajax technologies will neither create a page to go back to, nor truncate the web browsing history forward of the displayed page. Using Ajax technologies the end user gets one dynamic page managed as a single page in the web browser while the actual web content rendered on that page can vary. The Ajax engine sits only on the browser requesting parts of its DOM, the DOM, for its client, from an application server. DHTML is the umbrella term for technologies and methods used to create web pages that are not static web pages. Client-side-scripting, server-side scripting, or a combination of these make for the dynamic web experience in a browser.

Static VS Dynamic Web Page

• Static means unchanged or constant, while dynamic means changing or lively. A static site is one that is usually written in plain HTML and what is in the code of the page is what s displayed to the user. A dynamic site is one that is written using a server-side scripting language such as PHP, ASP, JSP or Coldfusion.
• There are basically two main types of website - static and dynamic.
• A static site is one that is usually written in plain HTML and what is in the code of the page is what is displayed to the user.In such a site the content is called in by the scripting language from other files or from a database depending on actions taken by the user.

*Static site Advantages

Flexibility is the main advantage of a static site - every page can be different if desired, to match the layout to different content, and the designer is free to put in any special effects that a client may ask for in a unique way on different pages. This allows theming - for instance an author may want a different theme for a different book and associated pages or perhaps for a series of books, in order to match the cover designs or the context of the stories.

Cost is generally lower up-front than a dynamic site.

*Static sites - disadvantages

The main problem with any static site appears when you wish to update the content. Unless you are conversant with HTML and the design methods used in the site then you have to go back to the designer to have any content changes made. This may be perfectly ok when a new page is required which needs design input, but if all you want to do is change some text then it can be a nuisance for both client and designer.

The second main problem is scalability. If you wish to sell products on your site and you have a lot of them then you may have to construct individual pages for each one, which can take considerable time, effort and cost.

Costs - there are ongoing costs for updating the content.

*Dynamic sites - advantages

The main advantages of dynamic sites are that by connecting them to databases you can easily pull in information in an organised and structured way to create product pages or categories of related products sorted in a variety of different ways depending on how the user wants to view them.

This ability to connect to a database means that you can also create a content management system - an interface which allows the client to input and manage data via a web-based series of administration pages. That content can be text for their pages and images to go along with the text, or items in their product range with categories, specifications, short and long descriptions, images, etc. In both these cases it can be as simple or as complex as the client requires.

There are little or no ongoing costs unless there is a change in the basic design or an extra capability added.

*Dynamic sites - disadvantages

The design of a dynamic site is more fixed than a static one because many of the pages are essentially a template into which data and content is poured to create multiple pages of a similar type. So for instance all your product pages will be essentially the same page layout with different data being displayed. While some custom capability can be built in it is usually quite limited, such a selecting from a set of pre-defined options. Individual layout changes to particular pages are not usually possible.

Costs are higher initially than for a static site, and additional functionality may also cost more, particularly if it's something that wasn't envisaged originally and requires re-writing of the core code or database.