Lesson 2. The world-wide web

I. Read and memorize the following words and word combinations:

database – база данных

to store – хранить

to aware – осознавать

implementation – внедрение

to rely on – полагаться на

remote – действующий на расстоянии

ignorant – неосведомленный, не знающий

particular reference – определенная ссылка

 

II. Read and translate the text.

People have dreamt of a universal information database since the late 1940s. In this database, not only would the data be accessible to people around the world, but it would also easily link to other pieces of information, so that only the most important data would be quickly found by a user. Only recently the new technologies have made such systems possible. The most popular system currently in use is the World-Wide Web (WWW) which began in March 1989. The Web is an Internet-based computer network that allows users on one computer to access information stored on another through the world-wide network.

As the popularity of the Internet increases, people become more aware of its colossal potential. The World-Wide Web is a product of the continuous search for innovative ways of sharing information resources. The WWW project is based on the principle of universal readership: “if information is available, then any person should be able to access it from anywhere in the world.” The Web’s implementation follows a standard client-servermodel. In this model, a user relies on a program (the client) to connect to a remote machine (the server), where the data is stored. The architecture of the WWW is the one of clients, such as Netscape, Mosaic, or Lynx, “which know how to presentdata but not what its origin is, and servers, which know how to extractdata”, but are ignorant of how it will be presented to the user.

One of the main features of the WWW documents is their hypertextstructure. On a graphic terminal, for instance, a particular reference can be represented by underlined text, or an icon. “The user clicks on it with the mouse, and the referenced document appears.” This method makes copying of information unnecessary: data needs only to be stored once, and all referenced to it can be linked to the original document.

Notes

Netscape Navigator — шестой по популярности в мире браузер, производившийся компанией Netscape Communications с 1994 по 2007 год, последние версии на основе движка браузера Mozilla Firefox. Версии Netscape до четвертой были основными конкурентами Internet Explorer, версии 6—7.2 были основаны на Mozilla Application Suite.

Mosaic — это первый веб-браузер под операционную систему Microsoft Windows (тогда ещё MS-DOS с графической оболочкой MS Windows 3) с графическим интерфейсом пользователя и развитыми возможностями, на котором основаны и Netscape Navigator, и Microsoft Internet Explorer.

Lynx — один из первых текстовых браузеров.

 

III. Give the Russian equivalents.

Database, around the world, to be stored, continuous search, to be accessible, implementation, to rely on something, to be ignorant, features, particular reference, underlined text, referenced documents, unnecessary.

 

IV. Find in the text the English equivalents of the following Russian words and phrases.

Внедрение, распределение, хранение информации, база данных, ссылка, инновационный путь, доступный, поиск, связывать, обмениваться информацией.

V. Read the following international words, guess their meanings and derive nouns and adjectives from them.

 

Noun	Adjective
technology	—
system	—
—	popular
information	—
—	colossal
potential	—
—	universal
machine	—
architecture	—
structure	—
—	original
document	—

VI. Answer the following questions.

1. What have people dreamt of? 2. What systems employ new technologies made accessible to people around the world? 3. What possibilities does the Internet give its users? 4. What does the popularity of the Internet lead to? 5. What is the principle of the universal readership? 6. What are the main features of the WWW documents?

VII. Speak on the advantages of the Internet.

VIII. Read the text without a dictionary. Speak briefly on the WWW success.

Success of the WWW

Set of in 1989, the WWW quickly gained great popularity among Internet users. What is the reason for the immense success of the World-Wide Web? Perhaps, it can be explained by CERN’s attitude towards the development of the project. As soon as the basic outline of the WWW was complete, CERN made the source code for its software publicly available. CERN has been encouraging collaboration by academic and commercial parties since the onset of the project, and by doing so it got millions of people involved in the growth of the Web.

The system requirements for running a WWW server are minimal, so even administrators with limited funds had a chance to become information providers. Because of the intuitive nature of hypertext, many inexperienced computer users were able to connect to the network. Furthermore, the simplicity of the Hyper Text Markup Language, used for creating interactive documents, allowed these users to contribute to the expanding database of documents on the Web. Also, the nature of the World-Wide Web provided a way to interconnect computers running different operating systems, and display information created in a variety of existing media formats.

In short, the possibilities for hypertext in the world-wide environment are endless. With the computer industry growing at today's pace, no one knows what awaits us in the 21^st century.

Notes

CERN — Европейская организация по ядерным исследованиям, крупнейшая в мире лаборатория физики высоких энергий. Также иногда переводится как Европейский Центр ядерных исследований. Аббревиатура CERN произошла от фр. Conseil Européen pour la Recherche Nucléaire (Европейский совет по ядерным исследованиям). В русском языке обычно используется аббревиатура ЦЕРН.

IX. Read the text. Retell it in Russian or in English.