world-wide web \world"-wide` web"\, n.
   The collective total of all computer installations that are
   connected to the internet and provide access to other
   computers connected to the internet, using hypertext
   transfer protocol, to computer files called web pages, which
   may have text, graphics, audio or animated video data, as
   well as pages which may provide data or information in all
   those forms.

   Syn: Web, the web, WWW.
        [PJC]

	

	World-Wide Web
     
         (WWW, W3, The Web) An
        Internet client-server hypertext distributed information
        retrieval system which originated from the CERN High-Energy
        Physics laboratories in Geneva, Switzerland.
     
        An extensive user community has developed on the Web since its
        public introduction in 1991.  In the early 1990s, the
        developers at CERN spread word of the Web's capabilities to
        scientific audiences worldwide.  By September 1993, the share
        of Web traffic traversing the NSFNET Internet backbone
        reached 75 gigabytes per month or one percent.  By July 1994
        it was one terabyte per month.
     
        On the WWW everything (documents, menus, indices) is
        represented to the user as a hypertext object in HTML
        format.  Hypertext links refer to other documents by their
        URLs.  These can refer to local or remote resources
        accessible via FTP, Gopher, Telnet or news, as well as
        those available via the http protocol used to transfer
        hypertext documents.
     
        The client program (known as a browser), e.g. NCSA
        Mosaic, Netscape Navigator, runs on the user's computer
        and provides two basic navigation operations: to follow a
        link or to send a query to a server.  A variety of client
        and server software is freely available.
     
        Most clients and servers also support "forms" which allow the
        user to enter arbitrary text as well as selecting options from
        customisable menus and on/off switches.
     
        Following the widespread availability of web browsers and
        servers, many companies from about 1995 realised they could
        use the same software and protocols on their own private
        internal TCP/IP networks giving rise to the term
        "intranet".
     
        If you don't have a WWW browser, but you are on the
        Internet, you can access the Web using the command:
     
        	telnet www.w3.org
     
        (Internet address 128.141.201.74) but it's much better if you
        install a browser on your own computer.
     
        The World Wide Web Consortium is the main standards body for
        the web.
     
        An article by John December
        (http://sunsite.unc.edu/cmc/mag/1994/oct/webip.html).
     
        A good place to start exploring
       
     (http://www.ncsa.uiuc.edu/SDG/Software/Mosaic/StartingPoints/NetworkStartingPoints.html).
     
        WWW servers, clients and tools
        (http://www.w3.org/hypertext/WWW/Status.html).
     
        Mailing list: .
     
        Usenet newsgroups: news:comp.infosystems.www.misc,
        news:comp.infosystems.www.providers,
        news:comp.infosystems.www.users,
        news:comp.infosystems.announce.
     
        The best way to access this dictionary is via the Web since
        you will get the latest version and be able to follow
        cross-references easily.  If you are reading a plain text
        version of this dictionary then you will see lots of curly
        brackets and strings like
     
        	(http://hostname/here/there/page.html).
     
        These are transformed into hypertext links when you access it
        via the Web.
     
        See also Java, webhead.
     
        (1996-10-28)