A Brief History of the Web
Before diving into actual Web Development, let us first understand how the Internet and the World Wide Web emerged and connected all of its smaller networks . 💻
Let’s First Talk About The Internet
The first computer networks appeared in the 1950s and 60s, taking the form of Local Area Networks (LAN), where close-by computers within an organization or company were able to exchange digital and physical information without having someone to retrieve the information him/herself.
Just like cars on a road, data transmissions over a LAN causes network traffic. As organizations add more computers to one single network, a demand to prevent network collisions and congestions led to the creation of a private network of multiple interconnected LANs, or intranet, within an organization.
In 1966, MIT researcher Lawrence Roberts worked with the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) under the US Department of Defense and developed the ARPANET, the first network that was able to send data from private networks like intranets to others through packet switching, which is a method of networking data by breaking them into smaller packets and sending them to a network through multiple, separate routes.
Larger and more efficient versions of the ARPANET were created later in the late 20th century, building the foundation for a global network of networks, or the Internet, using universal internetworking protocols.
NOTE: The World Wide Web is a space for users to find information on the Internet using the HTTP protocol. For more information regarding the difference between the Internet and the WWW, check out this video.
Implementing The World Wide Web
Around 20 years later, in 1980, a contractor working with the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) named Tim Berners-Lee developed ENQUIRE, a program that helped staffs at CERN to navigate the extensive networks computers using “cards” — what we would call web pages today — containing information and hypertexts users can click to retrieve other pages.
In 1989, Berners-Lee started working with a supporter named Robert Cailliau to create a larger version of the ENQUIRE that is based upon the Internet. By October of 1990, the two have built the first web browser/editor and web server, and developed the necessary technologies that are fundamental to the Web today: HTTP, HTML, and URL (We will explain these technologies in the next article). The World Wide Web project was announced to the public in June of 1991, and the first webpage was launched in August of that year.
The WWW project was started to allow high energy physicists to share data, news, and documentation. We are very interested in spreading the web to other areas, and having gateway servers for other data. — Tim Berners-Lee
Growth of the Web
When the Web was released to the public, it was used primarily by universities and laboratories. There were no search engines of course, so users had to either bookmark their websites using new web browsers such as the Mosaic Web Browser or reference pages that lists hypertexts to other webpages.
In September 1994, Berners-Lee founded the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) and improved the availability of the web by making the Web and its technologies patent and royalty free.
Commercialization
Many companies perceived the benefits of the Web by 1996 and began to shift their businesses to the digital websites — the dot-coms. The number of start-up companies increased significantly from 1998 to 2000, and often times, investors would fund those whose business focuses on the Web. This Dot-Com Boom would become a bubble and eventually burst in 2001 as start-ups failed to become profitable due to their poor business executions, despite their use of the Web.
However, a few notable websites such as Amazon and Google survived the bubble and are thriving today.
Web 2.0 (2002 — today)
Before Web 2.0, web users were only visitors of websites that publish information by its parent company. Beginning in 2002, new means of interaction between the users and the websites emerged and created a “social Internet”. Some examples of the services that started during this period are blogs, video and music streaming services, and social medias.
Mobile Web
The use of mobile devices to access the Web popularized, especially with smartphones. Website owners adapted to the Mobile Web by making their sites’ layout change as the screen size of the user’s device changes (Responsive Websites). New technologies are now being constantly developed, some of which allow developers to make their websites resemble applications that perform sophisticated tasks and work smoothly on any device (Web Applications) — whether it’s a laptop, tablet, or smartphone.
Why Does This Matter?
With all the resources available online, Web Development today is much easier than before It is important for a beginner to understand that the code they are writing is the result of decades of development and should not be taken for granted.
However, learning Web Development now may also be a struggle since all these accumulating technologies may seem very confusing and overwhelming. This is why Code Club at DBHS is here to help you learn not just the Whats and Hows, but also comprehensively: the Whys. I hope this article helped you get a better and bigger picture of what this so-called Web is and how it developed its technologies to become what it is today!
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