What is the web?

The web, often referred to as the World Wide Web (WWW), is a system of interlinked hypertext documents and multimedia content that is accessed via the Internet. It provides a way for users to access and share information over the Internet using web browsers.

The web uses Client-Server Model or architecture. The client(browsers) make requests to the servers, and the server replies with the resources requested. The core technologies of the web are HTTP(HyperText Transfer Protocol), HTML(HyperText Markup Language), and the Browsers, used to view documents created using HTML.

1. HTTP:

The Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP). This protocol is the foundation of the web technology and defines the rules and ways resources(files) should be sent/received. The HTTP is an application layer protocol. Which means it's a software based system. For that, it requires a client/server architecture. That's why you will hear terms such as web client or web server.

The clients usually make demands of resources from servers. These demands are generally called Requests. And, in all cases, servers will try their best to give a feedback on any request. These feedbacks are also called Responses.

As a web developer, you would build websites/applications that are going to be accessed by your users via the browsers. These users will type your site's name in the browser's address bar, then the browsers will place the command(make a request) to the server that's hosting (keeping) your site's files. Then the server will reply to each request to every page open on your site.

This communication between the clients(browsers) and the server will become an important part of your job as a web developer. As such, your job does not stop at writing the source code of your applications, but to ensure the client/server communication is optimal and safe. Talking of about safety, this is taken into consideration by the Secure HTTP or HTTPS, and improved version.

One great aspect of the HTTP that web developers will always face is the methods used by the browsers to establish HTTP communcations with the server.
These methods determine how the clients sends the requests and how the server should respond. These methods are usually called the HTTP verbs as well. Here the most common you will meet often:

GET:

This method instructs the server to return a resource.

POST:

This one is used to pass some data such as username and password to the server

PUT:

This one is used to pass data to the server and ask it to make some changes/updates to an existing information

DELETE:

This one is used to request the server to delete some information

2. HTML

HTML is the language used to structure hyptext/web documents. Instead of using a standard GUI(Graphical User Interface) software to edit the documents text, we use a marking language to mark what each portion of our document should look like. For example, to make a portion of a text bold in Word, we highlight the text then we click on "B" button. Using HTML we would write this:<b>This is a bold text</b> And the only software that knows how to interpret this, is the browser.

3. Browsers

Web browsers are software that allow users to access, view, and interact with content on the World Wide Web(web documents); They translate the HTML, CSS, and Javascript code into their visual representations and manage various user interactions and web protocols.

The core functions of web browsers include rendering web pages, navigating the web, handling wep protocols, managing Cookies and Cache, and providing security. Some key parts of every browser are the address bar, where users enter the URLs to navigate, the Tabs, used to visit many URLs in the same window, the bookmark, used to memorise some websites addresses, and the settings, used to configure the browser's behavious and look.

Some of the popular browsers include Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Apple Safari, Microsoft Edge, and Opera.