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Digital Literacy How the Web Works The World Wide Web Final Review

Chris Grazioli
Chris Grazioli
31,225 Points

The Internet and the Web aren't the same thing???

This has to be an error ...

5 Answers

huckleberry
huckleberry
14,636 Points

Nope, not an error. In every day language most folks refer to them interchangeably but they don't know the technical details and therefore aren't really speaking properly. It's semantics of course when you're dealing with a laymen -- your every day non-techie user -- and frankly is a non-issue. My mom still calls her desktop her home page and still calls her browser her desktop and "the internet" interchangeably. It's annoying, but it's cute and it illustrates the complete irrelevance that any of this information has for HER and the myriad of others that don't care to know nor need to know. They want cat videos and pseudo-science Dr. Oz articles... proper terminology be damned.

And that's perfectly fine.

But if you're working on the technical side it's important to know the difference.

The internet is the solid stuff. The hardware. The servers and satellites and wires and blah blah blah.

The web is all the stuff ON that hardware. It's all the sites and images and files and videos and whatever. The stuff that people go ON the internet to interact with.

So... imagine you're back in the dark ages, ok? It's now 1985 and you're working in a run of the mill office. Maybe you're a sales rep for a big ad agency. You have to go a separate room they keep in the office that holds all the files and stuffs for all the clients past and present. Think about a file cabinet in that room. Is that file cabinet the room? Is a file cabinet a file? Is it a folder? Is the room either a file or a folder or a cabinet? Is a file cabinet anything other than a place that you go to in order to interact with a file/folder?

No. They're all separate things that are part of a larger whole.

The room & the file cabinet is your client and the internet respectively. The files and folders are the web.

  • You go to the room and open the door (open your laptop/turn on your computer) to
  • access the file cabinets(the internet) and
  • open the drawer(open your browser/log in/connect) in order to
  • look through the files and folders( browse the web ) that are
  • ON the internet (IN the file cabinet).

Hoped that helped!

Cheers,

Huck - :sunglasses:

Chris Grazioli
Chris Grazioli
31,225 Points

Rollerblade.... In-Line-skate sort of thing

huckleberry
huckleberry
14,636 Points

originally posted by Nathaniel Nasarow

1985, the dark ages... xD

hehe

originally posted by Joy Kesten

well said!

Why thank you :). I don't know why it bore repeating. Seems you explained it rather well initially but hey... *shrug*... who am I to judge?

Cheers,

Huck - :sunglasses:

Chris Grazioli
Chris Grazioli
31,225 Points

At no point in the video was this perspective discussed. Just Saying. The Internet and web hardware software story you are selling wasn't discussed

huckleberry
huckleberry
14,636 Points

Well, I hadn't watched the series because this is stuff that I already know from being around long enough to pick it up as well as other treehouse courses touching on the various aspects -- the beginning vids of web development/design to be precise -- So I went and watched just the first video and it's all right there dude.

She starts off going into clients at about 00:30, goes into the hardware = internet thing around 1:09, and then specifically touches on all the files, folders and media... the software... = the web at around 1:40.

So, it IS there bro. Not exactly how I explained it but that was my own analogous interpretation and I'm sure there are many other analogies that one could extrapolate from the structure of the internet v. web dichotomy but regardless, it was in there and it was explained rather clearly.

Cheers,

Huck - :sunglasses:

Chris Grazioli
Chris Grazioli
31,225 Points

www -> world wide web-> the tangled mess of wires and switches in the basements of telecoms which make up the "Internet"

Joy Kesten
STAFF
Joy Kesten
Treehouse Guest Teacher

I go over the difference in the first video "The Big Picture" - starting at 1:06 and finishing at around 2:20.

Specifically it says, "The internet is a net of computers all connected together by various cables. It's made up of wires, routers, switches and satellites, connecting the network of servers together.... Housed on servers are the files, folders and media that make up webpages. These files, folders and media are all software and are what we're talking about when we say the web. The web is the software that makes up websites, applications, games, wikis and videos that you can access on a web browser."

huckleberry
huckleberry
14,636 Points

soooo close. ya beat me by a smidge there, Joy... just a smidge.

Cheers,

Huck - :sunglasses:

Joy Kesten
Joy Kesten
Treehouse Guest Teacher

:) I'm sure you'll get me next time. I'm usually terrible at foruming IRT

huckleberry
huckleberry
14,636 Points

The gauntlet has been thrown down and I accept with vigor!

On a side note, my terribleness resides in initialisms. "IRT"?

Cheers,

Huck - :sunglasses:

huckleberry
huckleberry
14,636 Points

OIC! tyvm. ttfn!

Cheers,

Huck - :sunglasses:

no no no no no yes (no) and no.