## The web is actually pretty simple Computers have been around and been able to connect one big machine (thousands of pounds per computer) to another for 20 to thirty years before the web/internet as we know it even existed. Each of these computers would send information back and forth over coper cables, using custom written code that understood the pulses of electricity each machine was emitting. ![[two_computers_light.gif]] What made the codifying of the web super important in the 80's was two things. One a standardized protocol to connect to different machines and addressing system with a registry (DNS) that allows us to type ==URL== or domain names, which are human readable more friendly, and the computer will look up the address associated with that URL. For Example: ``` mywebsite.com 158.314.481 elibaird.com 134.323.534 google.com 123.532.634 ``` Once the computer has reached out the DNS (Domain Name System) and it has the IP address, it knows how to reach out to the first address, then the second address and finally the third address in the sequence. ![[networking_ip_address_light.gif]] As a user you don't need to think about this process, it all happens behind the scenes. Your browser that you use to interact with IP's & URLs knows how to follow the protocol to get responses from the server. Which usually come in the form of HTML (Hypertext Markup Language). ![[web_request_light.gif]] The ==Request== is a fundamental part of the of the HTTP Protocol, and how your browser communicates with servers. https://www.w3schools.com/tags/ref_httpmethods.asp and the most common form of Request is a GET Request. Your browser builds a request asking to "GET" any resources at the given "URL" (`https://elibaird.com/intro+to+programming/0.+Getting+Started`) and sends it off through the network of computers that make up the internet, and when the target server receives the information it reads the request, and chooses how it wants to respond back to the requesting browser; usually in the form of HTML. ```mermaid flowchart TD A[Browser] -->|GET Request to site.com/folder1| B(Remote Server) B -->|index.html| A ``` Lets learn more about html! [[2. HTML Basics|HTML Basics]]