section 1, intro, for review

Tim Bray and I took the assignment for the
intro section. He took a first shot, I salted
to taste, and then I worked in some feedback
from Chris.

  Introduction
  $Revision: 1.6 $ of $Date: 2002/03/13 16:38:22 $
  http://www.w3.org/2001/tag/doc/intro

It's short enough that I suppose I'll attach
a text copy.

-- 
Dan Connolly, W3C http://www.w3.org/People/Connolly/



   [1]W3C * [2]TAG * [3]Web Architecture

      [1] http://www.w3.org/
      [2] http://www.w3.org/2001/tag/
      [3] http://www.w3.org/2001/tag/doc/toc

                                 Introduction


    DRAFT Dan Connolly, based on [4]draft by Tim Bray
    $Revision: 1.6 $ of $Date: 2002/03/13 16:38:22 $

      [4] http://www.textuality.com/tag/Intro.html

   The World Wide Web ("Web" from here on ) is a networked information
   system consisting of clients, servers and other agents that
   interchange information. Web Architecture is the set of rules that all
   agents in the system follow that result in the large-scale effect of a
   shared information space.

   This architecture consists of:
    1. A single specification of the way in which objects in the system
       are identified: the Uniform Resource Identifier.
    2. Specifications of a small and nonexclusive set of protocols for
       interchanging information between agents: HTTP comes to mind
       first, but SMTP and others are also important. Several of these
       protocols share a reliance on the MIME metadata/packaging system.
    3. Specifications of a nonexclusive set of data formats designed for
       interchange between agents in the system. This includes several
       formats used in isolation or in combinations (e.g. XHTML, PNG,
       XLink, RDF, SMIL animation, Ruby), as well as technologies for
       designing new formats (XML, Namespaces, DOM).

   The rules are kept to a minimum, leaving the functionality the Web can
   deliver open to the imagination of its developers.