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.