What is "http://"?
By Kuniyuki Tanaka :: April 11, 2003
Does anyone know what "http://" stands for? Tell me, please.
Rudolf Ammann :: April 11, 2003 10:42 AM
Hello, Tiger – glad you made it here.
The acronym HTTP stands for HyperText Transfer Protocol. You know what hypertext is: it’s text that has hyperlinks which connect parts of a document to other documents, typically accross a network. You also know what ‘transfer’ means: it’s getting something from one place to another place.
The idea of a ‘protocol’ may be harder to grasp, but to put it simply: a protocol is always a set of rules. In this case, the protocol is a set of rules which determine how a hypertext document is sent from one machine (server) to another (client).
One way of looking at the internet is to say that it is a bunch of protocols. If you use an e-mail program, for example, you’re highly likely to use POP, the Post Office Protocol. To upload html files and images to your web site, you will most likely use FTP, the File Transfer Protocol.
So, all in all: you have to type the "http://" part of web addresses so that the browser knows it should use the Hypertext Transfer Protocol rather than the File Transfer Protocol to retrieve any given page.
Actually, I should have saved the trouble of typing this all out. I simply should have told you to go and do a Google search. Google has a relatively new service called Google Glossary which gives you definitions for words, phrases and acronyms. Here are the results for ‘HTTP’.
Ayumi Sawa :: April 11, 2003 06:33 PM
I see! :-)
You know much about computers, Ruedi!
See you then! ;-)
Rudolf Ammann :: April 11, 2003 10:42 AM
Hello, Tiger – glad you made it here.
The acronym HTTP stands for HyperText Transfer Protocol. You know what hypertext is: it’s text that has hyperlinks which connect parts of a document to other documents, typically accross a network. You also know what ‘transfer’ means: it’s getting something from one place to another place.
The idea of a ‘protocol’ may be harder to grasp, but to put it simply: a protocol is always a set of rules. In this case, the protocol is a set of rules which determine how a hypertext document is sent from one machine (server) to another (client).
One way of looking at the internet is to say that it is a bunch of protocols. If you use an e-mail program, for example, you’re highly likely to use POP, the Post Office Protocol. To upload html files and images to your web site, you will most likely use FTP, the File Transfer Protocol.
So, all in all: you have to type the "http://" part of web addresses so that the browser knows it should use the Hypertext Transfer Protocol rather than the File Transfer Protocol to retrieve any given page.
Actually, I should have saved the trouble of typing this all out. I simply should have told you to go and do a Google search. Google has a relatively new service called Google Glossary which gives you definitions for words, phrases and acronyms. Here are the results for ‘HTTP’.