Wiley Web Standards Programmer's Reference: HTML, CSS, JavaScript, Perl, Python, and PHP 978-0-7645-8820-4 ユーザーズマニュアル

The Basics of HTML

Before you begin to code HTML pages for the Web, it is important to understand some of the tech-
nology, standards, and syntax behind the Web. This chapter introduces you to HTML and answers
the following questions:

❑

What is the World Wide Web?

❑

How does the Web work?

❑

What is HTML?

❑

What is the basic syntax of HTML?

Subsequent chapters in this section delve into the specifics of HTML, covering various tags you
can use to format your pages.

What Is the Wor ld Wide Web?

The Internet is a worldwide network of computers all attached in a global networking scheme.
This scheme, known as TCP/IP, assigns and uses unique addresses to communicate between com-
puters on the Internet.

The World Wide Web is a network of computers that, using the Internet, are able to exchange text,
graphics, and even multimedia content using standard protocols. Web servers — special computers
that are set up for the distinct purpose of delivering content — are placed on the Internet with spe-
cific content for others to access. Web clients — which are generally desktop computers but can also
be dedicated terminals, mobile devices, and more — access the servers’ content via a browser. The
browser is a specialized application for displaying Web content.

For example, Google maintains many Web servers that connect to their database of content found
on the Web. You use your home or office PC to connect to the servers via a browser such as
Microsoft’s Internet Explorer or Mozilla’s Firefox (shown in Figure 1-1).

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