Current Web Topics Outlined by Webmaster
The current status of the World-Wide Web and its Hypertext Markup
Language (HTML) were outlined before the Software Entrepreneurs
Forum/UniForum Open Systems SIG recently by Mary Morris, Webmaster
for Sun Microsystems and an independent Web consultant. She briefed
the attendees on following topics:
Style Guides:
This feature would allow users of HTML to create their own terms
for specific styles in their HTML documents. For example, the
author could insert the term "big red" in the HTML document and
large, bright red type, or whatever the author defined, would
appear on the Web page. This feature probably will not appear
in HTML 3.0, expected to be approved next year, but possibly
in HTML 4.0, Morris said.
Magic Cookie:
The use of a magic cookie began with the X Window System, as a
token that is parsed from the client to an XServer at connection
time. If the magic cookie presented by the client is the same
as the one expected by the XServer, the client can connect to
and use the services of the XServer. If the magic cookie is
different, then the client is refused connection.
By analogy, the magic cookie can be seen to be the same as a
password. It's this use that's been employed by Web browsers,
according to Morris. Netscape has put a magic cookie in every
browser, which could be used by servers contacted by Web users
to identify exactly which Netscape client is contacting it. The
use of this identifier might be employed later as a personal
digital signature in official transactions, if it proves to be
secure. However, a second-generation magic cookie would probably
be required, she said, to satisfy the banking community.
Netscape's use of the magic cookie "is not totally altruistic,"
she said, because "pretty soon, if you haven't paid for your
browser, they can come after you."
URI:
The Universal Resource Identifier (URI) is an encompassing
term that includes not only the Uniform Resource Locator (URL)
HTTP address that Web users are familiar with, but Uniform Resource
Name (URN), the more commonly understood English name that appears
atop each displayed Web page. A URI, therefore, can be either
a URL or a URN.
Use of the Web:
As big as the WWW has become, only 10 percent of the population
is able to use it. "The biggest barrier to entry into any
Internet system is to get the average user to use it," Morris
said. "We need to make the Web available for anyone to use and
to publish on. Some still think publishing requires a programmer,
but it doesn't."
Security:
Netscape's own Secure Socket Layer (SSL) protocol is still in
competition with the Secure-HTTP protocol developed by
Enterprise Integration Technologies/Terisa. Some security
protocol is expected to be included in the HTML 3.0 standard
when it is finalized later in 1995 or 1996. Both employ the same
type of encryption but implement it differently. "I wish I could
say one or the other of these two will be the standard," Morris
said. "Neither one is quite the standard and the only way they
are going to get anywhere is to get together. Hopefully, all
this religious feuding will go away."
Change in the Internet:
"The Internet has changed significantly with the advent of
commerce, and it will not go back to what it was," Morris said.
She gave Netscape credit for "doing the best job of herding
that I've seen" in spreading the use of its Netscape Navigator
browser. Surveys and use patterns have shown more than 70 percent
of Web browsing is done by Netscape Navigator. In fact, one
version - Netscape for Windows - is responsible for 51 percent
of the hits on the Yahoo index, she reported.
Sun's Java Technology:
"Java will have a strong competitor that we haven't seen yet
that says 'Java was a neat hack but we can do better than that.'
There are not a lot of implementations for Java but it's a fun
thing. If they can get useful applications, it will be good.
Java is basically where HTML was three years ago." Java is a
technology and programming language allowing Web clients to
import working mini-programs inside Web pages.