Abstract
We’re going to take a break from writing Dart programs (but we hardly got started, you say!) to understand the fundamentals of the World Wide Web, in preparation for working with it more extensively in our Dart programs. Hopefully you will find this detour and the hodge-podge of information about the Web that it features informative and interesting. If you already know everything in this chapter, then you’re quite well informed about technology for someone reading an introductory programming book… Given what a large impact the Web has had on everyone’s lives, it would probably be good if the public at large knew more about how the Web works.
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- 1.
A well-defined standard for communication over the Internet. A protocol is a “standard for communication,” if you will. Some non-HTTP examples include: SMTP (Simple Mail Transport Protocol), a protocol for sending e-mails; FTP (File Transfer Protocol), a protocol for transferring files; and TCP (Transport Control Protocol), a protocol that underlies relay through the Internet for the other protocols.
- 2.
A specific program running outside of the web browser’s sandbox.
- 3.
UPI, “Netflix, YouTube account for half of all Internet traffic,”. www.upi.com/Science_News/Technology/2013/11/11/Netflix-YouTube-account-for-half-of-all-Internet-traffic/UPI-83571384206980/ , November 11, 2013.
- 4.
ipoque, “Internet Study 2008/2009,” http://www.ipoque.com/sites/default/files/mediafiles/documents/internet-study-2008-2009.pdf , 2009.
- 5.
Don’t be intimidated by hexadecimal-defined RGB colors. Honestly, it’s a fairly stupid and cryptic way to define colors in a human readable format such as CSS. You can use online color tables to quickly look up the hexadecimal value of a color you want to use in your CSS. Some great color table resources are provided in Appendix D. Very few people memorize hexadecimal RGB color values (there must be a better way to spend your time). Almost everybody looks them up.
- 6.
Wikipedia, “Usage Share of Web Browsers,” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usage_share_of_web_browsers , November 23, 2013.
- 7.
The folks behind Dart test each release version of it against all modern web browsers. As of Dart 1.4, that definition of modern includes only Internet Explorer versions 9.0 and above.
- 8.
RT, “Internet’s new biggest threat? How web traffic can be secretly redirected,” http://rt.com/usa/mtm-renesys-redirect-internet-775/ , December 5, 2013.
- 9.
W3C, “Tim Berners-Lee,” www.w3.org/People/Berners-Lee/ , November 23, 2013.
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© 2014 David Kopec
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Kopec, D. (2014). How Does the Web Work?. In: Dart for Absolute Beginners. Apress, Berkeley, CA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4302-6482-8_7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4302-6482-8_7
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