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To access the contents, click the chapter and section titles.
Perl CGl Programming: No experience required.
Bringing HTML to the World Wide WebThe Hypertext Markup Language began as a rather simple set of text markup commands. It is a constantly evolving standard, however. When the first version of HTML was released for public comment in 1990, the Internet was a more insular world than it is now, with fewer people (using less-powerful computers) on it. The first Web browsers didnt need to do any more than display text. In fact, the relatively slow speed of the average consumer-level modem at the time precluded doing anything more complicated than text. Obviously, thats all changed since 1990. The Web is a graphical place now, as personal computers have leapfrogged in power and the average modem is capable of pulling down large and complex images in seconds. The Internets population has increased commensurately, too, to the point that some pundits have been predicting its imminent collapse for a couple of years. HTML has grown along with the Internet and the World Wide Web. It continues to grow, shepherded mainly by the IETF HTML working group, which is the official body of research, debate, and approval for the HTML standard. Some commercial efforts, notably Netscapes, have had a dramatic impact on the direction of HTML. International standards are usually set by committees. HTML 2.0 is one of those. But sheer popularity can define a standard, too. Netscape and Microsoft made their Web browser packages the two most popular in the world by virtually giving the browsers away. Thus, the standard became what these browsers can support. There has been some criticism of Netscape and Microsoft (which has a couple of HTML extensions of its own) for deviating from the official HTML standard, supposedly without the rigorous scrutiny that would have been applied by the IETF group. However, when you consider that many of the Netscape extensions have been added to HTML 3.2s list of capabilities, the criticism rings hollow. Browsing the World Wide WebNetscapes Navigator and Microsofts Internet Explorerlike em or notare used by more people in their Web adventures than any other browsers. There are differences in the look and feel of the packages. Figures 10.2 and 10.3 illustrate the varied looks.
Microsoft seems intent on burying Netscape these days, but the fact remains that Internet Explorer became a contender in large part because it supports the HTML extensions that Netscape developed for their Navigator 2.0. Netscape frames are an especially big issue. Not too long ago, many Webmasters were actually setting up dual pages, with hyperlinks to HTML documents that didnt use frames for browsers that didnt have the capability. You dont see that too much any more. There seems to be a tacit assumption that browsers will be frame capable these days. Likewise with Netscapes <APPLET> tag, which allows the browser to run Java applets downloaded from a Web site. Java is very popular on the World Wide Web, but without the Netscape extensions in your browser, you cant run it. Lets look at frames and applets and some of Netscapes other extensions to the HTML standard. Extending HTML with Applets and FramesNetscape made nine additions to HTML 2.0, detailed in Table 10.2. The most visible, in terms of a Web page, are applets and frames. However, all of these extensions will have a significant impact on any future versions of HTML.
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