Overview of web development

Agenda

HTTP
HTML
CSS
JavaScript
Node.js

Short history of web development

1965: Ted Nelson coins the word Hypertext
1968: Doug Engelbart prototypes an "online system"
1977: Vint Cerf and Bob Kahn develop the TCP/IP protocols at DARPA

Short history of web development

1989: Tim Berners-Lee creates the first HTTP server at CERN
1995: Brendan Eich creates JavaScript at Netscape
1996: W3C releases the first CSS specification

Short history of web development

2005: Jesse Garrett coins the term AJAX
2009: Ryan Dahl creates Node.js
2010: StongLoop release Express.js
2013: Facebook release React.js

Short history of web development

Networking

Protocol: a set of data formats and rules for communication
Bandwidth: the total capacity of a connection (Gb/s)
Throughput: the amount of data a node can process (Gb/s)
Latency: the amount of time a client waits for a response (seconds)

HTTP

Text-based
Request-Response model
Intended for simple document retrieval
Limitations have led to many workarounds

HTTP/2

Faster and smarter (binary encoding)
Two-way communication
Eliminates head-of-line blocking
Breaks many hacks around http 1.1

SSL: Secure Socket Layer

attacker cannot read messages
attacker cannot change message
guaranteed through certificates

Front-end evolution

Static Web sites: html only, reload on action
AJAX Web sites: background data processing
SPA: single page applications

The browser

has been evolving for over 20 years
mostly open, transparent and easy-to-use
protects multiple interests on a page
provides a built-in development environment

Front-end technologies

HTML: content and structure
CSS: styling and presentation
JavaScript: interactivity
Browser APIs: multiple functionalities

Back-end evolution

Static web server: returns files from disk
CGI Protocol: run a program to generate a response
Application Server: language specific implementations
Serverless: execute code on shared cloud infrastructure

Monolithic architecture

Microservice architecture

Questions?