Introduction - Java Software Solutions: Foundations of Program Design - page 25

according to natural relationships so that the reader can jump from one document
to another, following the appropriate path for that reader's needs. When other
media components are incorporated, such as graphics, sound, animations, and
video, the resulting organization is called

The terms Internet and World Wide Web are sometimes used interchange-
ably, but there are important differences between the two. The Internet makes it
possible to communicate via computers around the world. The Web makes that
communication a straightforward and enjoyable activity. The Web is essentially a
distributed information service and is based on a set of software applications. It is
not a network. Although it is used effectively with the Internet, it is not inherently
bound to it. The Web can be used on a LAN that is not connected to any other
network or even on a single machine to display HTML documents.
A browser is a software tool that loads and formats Web documents for view-
ing. Mosaic, the first graphical interface browser for the Web, was released in
1993. The designer of a Web document defines to other Web information that
might be anywhere on the Internet. Some of the people who developed Mosaic
went on to found the Netscape Communications Corporation and create the
Netscape Navigator browser. Popular contemporary browsers include Internet
Explorer, Mozilla Firefox, Apple Safari, Google Chrome, and Opera.
A computer dedicated to providing access to Web documents is called a
Web server . Browsers load and interpret documents provided by a Web server.
Many such documents are formatted using the HyperText Markup Language
(HTML). The Java programming language has an intimate relationship with
Web processing, because links to Java programs can be embedded in HTML
documents and executed through Web browsers. We explore this relationship
in more detail in Chapter 2.

hypermedia.

Uniform Resource Locators
Information on the Web is found by identifying a Uniform Resource Locator
(URL, pronounced by spelling out the letters U-R-L). A URL uniquely specifies
documents and other information for a browser to obtain and display. The fol-
lowing is an example URL:

http://www.google.com

The Web site at this particular URL is the home of the well-known
Google search engine , which enables you to search the Web for
information using particular words or phrases.
A URL contains several pieces of information. The first piece is
a protocol, which determines the way the browser transmits and

KEY CONCEPT
A URL uniquely specifies documents
and other information found on the
Web for a browser to obtain and
display.