Introduction to the Internet

[andrewducker]

In response to green_amber's request for an introduction to how the internet works, so she can hand it to non-technical people who deal with the internet, I've written this on my Wiki.

I'd really appreciate people taking a look and leaving comments here.

Comments

[akicif.livejournal.com]

Um. Did you mean to paste the same link into both?

Did you perhaps mean to link to this one?

[andrewducker]

My own incompetence continues to astound me.

[avatar.livejournal.com]

The link in your post is still a tad broken.

[andrewducker]

Fixed.

[onceupon.livejournal.com]

I like it. Particularly your beginning explanation of what the internet is NOT. Good analogies make things clear.

[catamorphism.livejournal.com]

Good, except "Internet" should be capitalized... in fact, that would be a good thing to include there. There are lots of internets, but only one Internet.

[green-amber.livejournal.com]

Yes I'm with her on that - I always go thru things capitalising Internet..

[andrewducker]

There's no "The Internet".

It's just a bunch of computers.

[catamorphism.livejournal.com]

Then how do you distinguish between the global public network of computers that use TCP/IP, and a private internet such as one consisting of networks within a single company?

[dalglir.livejournal.com]

Yep. 'Internet' and 'internet' have context sensitive meanings and are different things. If I take a hardline hardware view 'The Internet' does exist in the sense that it is the homogenous shared infrastructure connecting the services which can be accessed. The 'bunch of computers' are merely connected to the Internet - they are not part of the infrastructure itself.

[allorin.livejournal.com]

Hilariously (having just read it) you capitalise "Internet" in your headers, and then proceed to decapitalise "internet" within the body text.

Make your mind up!

[andrewducker]

I've also capitalised "Old" "Days" "Companies" "Servers" and pretty much everything other than "of" and "the" in the titles.

That's what ya do with titles.

[biscuitware.livejournal.com]

Might be nice to explain how it started.. and include some of the earlier pre-cursors to the "Internet"...

[andrewducker]

Not necessary to understand what it is. If people want a complete guide then there are those available. I want the minimum necessary for people to have an understanding of what's going on when they use it.

[green-amber.livejournal.com]

I get that. But capital looks right. (Sub editor - 83-85)

[mb2u]

FYI, Wired stopped capitalizing "internet." Stylewise, either works, though I prefer the lowercase myself...

[octopoid-horror.livejournal.com]

Succint. Not as succint as this

I drank too much caffeine back then

[andrewducker]

Too much caffeine?

Sentence not make sense!

[dalglir.livejournal.com]

Hate to be a pedant (Actually, I love it - I'm a pedantry whore) but the IP address you use in your 'just the basic facts' section is not an Internet routable address. Its part of 3 reserved private ranges detailed in RFC 1918 which can be used by anyone who doesn't want to connect to the Internet or will use some kind of address translation to change the address into a public Internet routable address. Arguably, this makes it not such a good example of a 'basic fact' Internet address ;-P

Otherwise its an excellent document. I'd have gotten completely carried away and written a small book with way too much detail and explanation and it would have ceased to be concise and simple... I think you have a good balance there.

[andrewducker]

Good point. I used that address purely because it's the one my PC uses at home, which is indeed non-routable (as I use NAT to get data to/from it).

[red-cloud.livejournal.com]

A non-techie audience will stop reading the moment you use the synonym TCP/IP. Actually, you're on probation the moment you use the terms "mainframe" and "server farm" in the introduction (hell, even I only have a vague idea what a server farm might be). You've lost your non-technical audience at TCP/IP. That moment, right there.

[allorin.livejournal.com]

He's right, y'know....

[red-cloud.livejournal.com]

Of course I meant acronym, not synonym, so what do I know?

[andrewducker]

The whole point is a simple guide for people who _have_ to understand the internet or _want_ to understand the internet. People who don't care won't read it at all, people who need to read it can work their way through it.

"Server farm" can be replaced by "huge rooms full of computers" tho - good point.

[red-cloud.livejournal.com]

It's my understanding that the audience is non-technical. I think the document gets too technical too soon. Generally, even the brightest non-technical people (e.g. lawyers) don't think in quite the same way as technical people. What may seem perfectly clear and reasonable and logical to a techie can look like Swahili to the most intelligent non-techie. Techies are concerned more with how something works rather than what it does, but non-techies in my experience prefer things the other way around.

To use your car analogy, a lawyer can be an expert on the laws surrounding car use without knowing where spark plugs fit in the scheme of things.

The document goes from simple, high-level analogies (restaurant, university) straight to concrete, low-level technical details (TCP/IP, IP addresses, HTTP). I think there's a step or two missing in there.

For example, it might be worthwhile explaining what a network is, describing the client-server paradigm, how the Internet is essentially a network of networks (hence the name), and so on, before attempting to explain the details of the technology that makes it all happen. I think the technical details are possibly irrelevant: the choice of technology is arbitrary, an historical accident of passing interest (and probably obsolete in five years anyway). What the Internet is and does is much more important and useful to know than how it currently does it. I see you've actually addressed most of this later in the document, but I feel it needs to come before (or instead of) any technical details.

Good luck with it. I'm interested to see what other people think.

[stillcarl.livejournal.com]

Every computer on the internet has a unique number.

That suggests to me the number will always be the same for any given computer, which I believe isn't the case. Would Every computer while connected to the internet has a unique number. be more accurate?

[andrewducker]

Good point. will make that change.