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Technology Infrastructure: The Internet and the World Wide Web

research community throughout the world. Berners-Lee proposed a hypertext
development project intended to provide this data-sharing functionality.
Over the next two years, Berners-Lee developed the code for a hypertext server 75
program and made it available on the Internet. A hypertext server is a computer that
stores files written in Hypertext Markup Language (HTML), the language used for the
creation of Web pages. The hypertext server is connected through the Internet to other
computers that can connect to the hypertext server and read those HTML files. Hypertext
servers used on the Web today are usually called Web servers. HTML, which Berners-Lee
developed from his original hypertext server program, is a language that includes a set of
codes (or tags) attached to text. These codes describe the relationships among text
elements. For example, HTML includes tags that indicate which text is part of a header
element, which text is part of a paragraph element, and which text is part of a numbered
list element. One important type of tag is the hypertext link tag. A hypertext link,or
hyperlink, points to another location in the same or another HTML document. The details
of HTML and other markup languages are covered later in this chapter.

Graphical Interfaces for Hypertext
Several different types of software are available to read HTML documents, but most
people use a Web browser such as Mozilla Firefox or Microsoft Internet Explorer. A Web
browser is a software interface that lets users read (or browse) HTML documents and
move from one HTML document to another through text formatted with hypertext link
tags in each file. If the HTML documents are on computers connected to the Internet, you
can use a Web browser to move from an HTML document on one computer to an HTML
document on any other computer on the Internet.
An HTML document differs from a word-processing document in that it does not
specify how a particular text element will appear. For example, you might use word-
processing software to create a document heading by setting the heading text font to Arial,
its font size to 14 points, and its position to centered. The document displays these exact
settings whenever you open the document in that word processor. In contrast, an HTML
document simply includes a heading tag with the heading text. Many different browser
programs can read an HTML document. Each program recognizes the heading tag and
displays the text in whatever manner each program normally displays headings. Different
Web browser programs might each display the text differently, but all of them display the
text with the characteristics of a heading.
A Web browser presents an HTML document in an easy-to-read format in the browser’s
graphical user interface. A graphical user interface (GUI) is a way of presenting program
control functions and program output to users and accepting their input. It uses pictures,
icons, and other graphical elements instead of displaying just text. Almost all personal
computers today use a GUI such as Microsoft Windows or the Macintosh user interface.

The World Wide Web
Berners-Lee called his system of hyperlinked HTML documents the World Wide Web. The
Web caught on quickly in the scientific research community, but few people outside that
community had software that could read the HTML documents. In 1993, a group of
students led by Marc Andreessen at the University of Illinois wrote Mosaic, the first GUI

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