Fundamentals of Web Development

Third Edition by Randy Connolly and Ricardo Hoar

Chapter 1.
Web Application
Development

Chapter 1
www.macewan.ca/ComputerScience
In this chapter you will learn . . .
● About web development in general
● The history of the Internet and World Wide Web
●Fundamental concepts that form the foundation of
the Internet
●About the hardware and software that support the
Internet

www.macewan.ca/ComputerScience
A Short History of the Internet
• Know the difference between
“Internet” and “WWW”
• While this book is focused on
the web, part of this chapter is
also devoted to a broad
understanding of that larger
circle labeled the “Internet.”
• Protocols define different
kinds of interactions/services
on the Internet

www.macewan.ca/ComputerScience
Circuit Switched Networks
Circuit switching in early networking

● In the past, telephone calls were

routed through operators who
physically connected the caller
and the receiver by connecting a
wire to a switchboard to complete
a circuit.
● Inefficient use of bandwidth
● Difficult to scale

www.macewan.ca/ComputerScience
Packet Switched Networks
Packet switching came later,
does not require a continuous
connection
● 1960s ARPANET
● 1974 X.25
● 1979 USENET
● 1981 TCP/IP was introduced
to unify disparate networks
On January 1, 1983, TCP/IP was
adopted across all of ARPANET
www.macewan.ca/ComputerScience
The Birth of the Web
Sr. Tim Berners-Lee publishes the main features of the web we know today on 1992.

• A Uniform Resource Locator (URL) to uniquely identify a resource on the WWW.

• The Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) to describe how requests and responses
operate
• A software program (web server software) that can respond to HTTP requests.
• Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) to publish documents.
• A program (a browser) that can make HTTP requests to URLs and that can display
the HTML it receives.

www.macewan.ca/ComputerScience
Web Applications in Comparison to
Desktop Applications
Advantages

• They can be accessed from any Internet-enabled computer.

• They can be used with different operating systems and browser
applications.
• They are easier to roll out program updates since only software on the
server needs to be updated as opposed to every computer in the
organization using the software.
• They have a centralized storage on the server, which means fewer security
concerns about local storage (which is important for sensitive information
such as health care data).

www.macewan.ca/ComputerScience
Web Applications in Comparison to
Desktop Applications
Disadvantages

• Requirement to have an active Internet connection

• Security concerns about sensitive private data being transmitted over the Internet.
• Concerns over the storage, licensing, and use of uploaded data.
• Problems with certain websites not having an identical appearance across all
browsers.
• Restrictions on software from being installed and hardware from being accessed
(like Adobe Flash on iOS).
• additional plugins might interfere with JavaScript, cookies, or advertisements.

www.macewan.ca/ComputerScience
From Static to Dynamic
(and Back to Static)
In the earliest days of
the web, users could
read the pages of a
static website

www.macewan.ca/ComputerScience
From Static to Dynamic
(and Back to Static)
Later, programs
running on web
servers let websites
generate content
dynamically. This type
of website is called a
dynamic server-side
website

www.macewan.ca/ComputerScience
Web 2.0
• Web 2.0 referred to an interactive experience where
users could contribute and consume web content, thus
creating a more user-driven web experience.
• For software developers, Web 2.0 also referred to a
change in the paradigm. Programming logic, which
previously existed only on the server, began to migrate
more and more to the browser, which required learning
JavaScript

www.macewan.ca/ComputerScience
Why are programs needed?

www.macewan.ca/ComputerScience
Why are programs needed?

www.macewan.ca/ComputerScience
The evolution continues
Web development today is thus more complicated than it was when the first edition of this
textbook was written in 2012–2013.

● Early chapters on HTML and CSS teach layout and structural foundations.
● JavaScript chapters focus on the fundamentals of the language and its usage
within the browser.
● While back-ends are thinner than they once were, server-side technologies are
still essential.
● Databases, state management, and authentication are all covered.
● Management, security and configuration round out the advanced topics.
● The one constant in the history of web development has been change

www.macewan.ca/ComputerScience
Evolving complexity example.
File upload

www.macewan.ca/ComputerScience
Evolving complexity example

www.macewan.ca/ComputerScience
The Client-Server Model
Client machines are the desktops, Server machines hosts web
laptops, smart phones, and tablets you applications, stores user and program
see everywhere. data, and performs security
authorization tasks
Broad range of specifications regarding
Powerful machines to handle high traffic
● operating system, and bandwidth.
● processing speed,
● screen size, The essential characteristic of a server is
● available memory, and that it is listening for requests, and
● storage upon getting one, responds with a
message.

www.macewan.ca/ComputerScience
Server Types
● Web servers.
● Application servers.
● Database servers.
● Mail servers.
● Media servers.
● Authentication servers.

www.macewan.ca/ComputerScience
Real World Server Installations
Not one server, but a cluster of multiple machines working
together.

● Server Farm
● Load Balancers
● Failover Redundancy
● Server Racks
● Data Centers
● Cloud Services

www.macewan.ca/ComputerScience
Hypothetical data center
Many additional considerations
can be handled at a data
center including:

● Fire suppression,
● Biometric security,
● Failover data
● Redundant power
● and more!

www.macewan.ca/ComputerScience
Cloud Servers
Instead of spending too
much or spending too little to
handle peak loads, cloud
providers offer elastic
provisioning of virtual
servers, which scales costs
and hardware to the demand

www.macewan.ca/ComputerScience
Where Is the Internet?
It is quite common for the Internet to be visually represented as a
cloud

Actually implemented via millions of miles of copper wires and

fiber optic cables connecting millions of server computers and
other networked devices!

www.macewan.ca/ComputerScience
From the Computer to
Outside the Home
The broadband modem is a bridge between the network
hardware outside the house and the network hardware inside the
house. These devices are often supplied by the ISP.

The wireless router is perhaps the most visible manifestation of

the Internet in one’s home. At its simplest, a router is a hardware
device that forwards data packets from one network to another
network.
www.macewan.ca/ComputerScience
From the Home to Ocean’s Edge

www.macewan.ca/ComputerScience
From the Home to Ocean’s Edge

www.macewan.ca/ComputerScience
How the Internet Is Organized Today
When someone talks about the
“Internet Backbone” they
are talking about Tier 1 networks.

Tier 1 Networks make use of very

fast fiber optic cable.

Regional networks have traditionally

used less speedy infrastructure,
though this is rapidly changing as
prices of optical hardware
decreases.

www.macewan.ca/ComputerScience