background

In the process of learning, we often hear ES6, ES2021, W3C, WHATWG, MDN and other words. This paper aims to understand the history of Web development by sorting out the relationship between Web specifications and organizations, and learn to locate documents and specifications when encountering problems.

What is Web

We often call ourselves Web front-end development, but what is the Web?

Refer to teacher Li Songfeng’s wonderful explanation:

Web is short for World Wide Web. It is an application built on the Internet. Tim Berners-Lee invented it in 1989 while working at CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research in Geneva, Switzerland.

What about the Internet?

The Internet is a network of communication between different machines in the world, a network of interconnections between Internet and hosts.

The Web is a collection of interconnected resources on the Internet.

The user enters the URL in the browser. The browser encapsulates the request data through the network protocol (most websites use HTTP/HTTPS) and finds the target host according to the layered network communication model (TCP/IP model) of the Internet. The host returns the HTML, CSS and other resources related to the web page, and then reversely transmits the information to the user host to display the web page on the browser.

Web Standards Organization

IETF

Internet Engineering Task Force Internet Engineering Task Force

The earliest Internet standards organization, the Internet existed before the invention of the Web, and the standards that make up the TCP/IP protocol family were developed by IETF.

Such as:

  • HTTP
  • URL
  • .

In addition to learning HTTP from the Definitive GUIDE to HTTP, the HTTP standard is very fragmented, and this is a summary list of MDN.

W3C

World Wide Web Consortium

The W3C is the main organization that develops Web standards. It was founded by the father of the Web and develops standards covering various Web technologies:

  • HTML
  • CSS
  • DOM
  • JavaScript Web API
  • .

Since the CSS3 standard is divided into discrete independent modules, we can learn CSS through the W3C search Title CSS 2 to have a structural understanding of CSS as a whole. Various other Web-related standards can be searched at W3C for learning.

WHATWG

Web Hypertext Application Technology Working Group

What the hell is a WHATWG when there is already a W3C?

The answer is not hard to find in whatWG-FQA: The WHATWG was founded in 2004 by a group of like-minded people from Apple, the Mozilla Foundation, and Opera Software, as the W3C focused on XHTML rather than HTML and failed to care about the needs of real Web developers. Browser developers are most concerned with user experience, and a WHATWG with a developer background is clearly in a better position to facilitate the standardization of Web features.

The standards developed by the WHATWG are:

  • HTML
  • DOM
  • Fetch
  • URL
  • .

So it’s not surprising that there are multiple organizations involved in one standard, it’s historical.

The HTML and DOM are basically maintained by the WHATWG.

Ecma

European Computer Manufacturers Association International

Ecma is the oldest of the four organizations, known until 1994 as the European Computer Manufacturers Association. Because of the internationalization of computers, the organization’s standards involve many other countries, so the organization decided to change its name to show its international character. The name is no longer an acronym.

There are many Technical committees under Ecma, among which TC39 is responsible for the development of the JavaScript standard ECMA-262. The ECMAScript® 2021 Language Specification is in draft state.

MDN

When we learn the front-end technology, we often use MDN to look up the interface. What is MDN? What is the relationship with Web standards organizations?

MDN, which stands for Mozilla Developer Network, formerly called Mozilla Developer Center, is now called MDN Web Docs.

MDN Events:

  • A project launched by Mozilla in 2005 to house documents such as open Web standards, internal projects, and developer guidance.

  • In 2017, Google, Microsoft, and Samsung shut down their documentation projects and migrated them all to MDN Web Docs.

  • Refactoring the website with React in 2019.

  • The source code for all editable content will be on Github in 2020.

  • Start fundraising in 2021 (no more worrying about MDN dying).

It can be said that MDN is the first choice for front-end development documents. When we query an API, there are links to related standards in the Specifications below for further study.

MDN also provides a systematic learning path from HTML, CSS, JavaScript to frameworks, Express (Node.js framework), etc.

MDN and Netscape are intertwined, as described below.

Document summary tool is recommended

Recommended several summary of the various language documents of the tool, the front three of course is a summary of MDN documents.

Client (available offline)

  • Dash for macOS
  • Zeal for Windows

The online version

  • devdocs.io

A Brief Introduction to the History of Web development

Make a timeline of Web development, from the dimension of time to understand the establishment of each standard organization, mainstream browser vendors, network protocol (HTTP, SSL/TSL), HTML, CSS, JavaScript specification development:

The first browser wars began,2001At the end of browser War II,2017Year end WordWideWeb Mosaic netscape navigator Internet explorer Safari Firefox Chrome web | | | | | | | | |1961-- - >1986-- - >1989-- - >1990-- - >1991-- - >1993-- - >1994-- - >1995-- - >1996-- - >1997-- - >1999-- - >2003-- - >2004-- - >2005-- - >2006-- - >2008-- - >2011-- - >2015-- - >2018-- - >... | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | ECMA IETF W3C + ECMA -> Ecma WHATWG MDN HTTP HTTP/0.9               SSL2. 0       HTTP/1.0 + SSL3. 0   http/1.1   TLS1. 0                                      TLS11.     TLS12.               HTTP/2.0    TLS13.
                      HTML                                      JavaScript               CSS      ECMAScript                                                                     ES51.      ES6



Copy the code

Tim Berners-Lee

The father of the Web, proposed in 1989 to build a set of information management system on the Internet, namely the World Wide Web, including:

  • UDI – Locate resources, later urls and URIs
  • HTTP – The way data is transmitted
  • HTML – Describes structured information and links
  • WorldWildWeb – Parses server response data and presents it to the user, first browser

W3C was created in 1994.

netscape

Netscape has played an integral role in the history of the Web.

  • In 1993, Netscape founder Marc Andreessen created Mosaic, the first popular web browser. Its innovative graphical interface led to Tim Berners-Lee’s creation of the World Wide Web, which exploded the Internet
  • Marc founded Netscape in 1994 and developed Netscape Navigator, which became the most popular browser at the time
  • Cookie technology was invented in 1994
  • Recruited Brendan Eich to create JavaScript in 1995
  • Invented SSL technology (predecessor of TLS) in 1995
  • The first browser war broke out with Microsoft Internet Explorer in 1995
  • Before Netscape was acquired in 1998, Netscape Communicator made the source code public. A day later Jamie Zawinski registered the domain name Mozilla.org and named the project Mozilla, after Mosaic and Godzilla.
  • It was acquired by AOL (America Online) in 1998
  • In 2002 members of the Mozilla community developed Firefox (considered a spiritual sequel to Netscape Navigator)
  • The Mozilla Foundation was established in 2003 to ensure that the Mozilla organization would survive on its own
  • 2003 AOL Time Warner disbanded Netscape
  • MDN Web Docs is largely maintained by Mozilla, Google, and volunteers. In 2021, the Open Web Docs organization raised funding for MDN Web Docs, with Microsoft, Google and other big names sponsoring it

Through the documentary Code Rush, I believe that most front-end development moves across time and space.

The browser

The client side of the Web, and the browser’s history, has been spectacular. Pick some key events:

  • Tim Berners-Lee invented the first browser, WorldWildWeb, in 1989
  • Marc Andreessen invented Mosaic, the first popular browser, in 1993
  • 1994 – Netscape Navigator, Netscape’s first browser
  • Microsoft launched its first browser, Internet Explorer, in 1995, the same year that the first browser wars broke out
  • Apple launched Safari in 2003
  • Mozilla launched Firefox in 2004, the same year the second browser war broke out, involving more companies and lasting longer
  • Google launched Chrome in 2008
  • The rest is history…

Network protocol

In Web front-end development, network protocols mainly involve application layer HTTP, SSL/TLS

HTTP Events:

  • HTTP was invented by Tim Berners-Lee in 1989
  • In 1991, the first version HTTP/0.9 was released
  • In 1996, HTTP/1.0 was released
  • In 1997, HTTP/1.1 was released
  • In 2015, HTTP/2.0 was released
  • In early 2021, HTTP/3.0 was still in draft form

SSL/TLS Events:

  • SSL 1.0 was never released publicly due to serious security flaws
  • SSL 2.0 was released in 1995, but there were still some security flaws
  • SSL 3.0 was released in 1996 after a complete redesign
  • TLS 1.0 was released in 1999 as an update to SSL 3.0. Why change the name? There’s some history involved, and it goes something like this: When netscape and Microsoft is in a very fierce and brutal competition (browser wars) for the first time, because the SSL was invented by netscape technology, but there are some security flaws, everyone for SSL version updates, Microsoft has been dubbed the netscape don’t want to the final results, under negotiation with everyone’s wish for TLS
  • In 2006, TLS 1.1 was released
  • In 2008, TLS 1.2 was released
  • In 2018, TLS 1.3 was released

All versions except TLS 1.2 and TLS 1.3 have been deprecated

Web 2.0

Web 2.0 differentiates Web 1.0 from user engagement and social networking, with an emphasis on user-generated content, ease of use, and interoperability.

The Web 1.0 experience was very unfriendly: mostly static pages that barely interacted with the user, and when a request was sent the entire page stuck until the page data came back to refresh the page.

Ajax technology gave birth to Web 2.0 and is the cornerstone of modern front-end development. Ajax originated at Microsoft and was popularized by Google in 2004 when it was used in its Gmail products.

conclusion

The history of the Web is intensely personal: Microsoft and Google, for example, are barely covered, and readers who want a fuller history of the Web will have to spend their own time exploring.

If there are fallacies in the article welcome to correct!

Summary of common front-end specification links

The W3C search

HTML

DOM

CSS

JavaScript

HTTP summary

HTTP/3

reference

Web standards

MDN Web Docs

IETF

W3C

WHATWG

Ecma

HTML wiki

CSS wiki

JavaScript wiki

ECMAScript wiki

Web browser wiki

Code Rush with Chinese subtitles annotated edition

Documentary “Code Rush”