Architecture of the World Wide Web
by Ian Jacobs

Table of contents

• Architecture of the World Wide Web
• Contents
• W3C's Technical Architecture Group
• TAG Participants
• Why an Architecture Document?
• Community Brings Issues to TAG
• TAG Explores Problem Space
• TAG Coordinates to Build Consensus
• Groups Document Consensus
• What Type of Information is in the Architecture Document, Findings?
• Architecture Tripod
• Identification I: Why URIs?
• Identification II: URI Usage
• Interaction I: Dereferencing a URI
• Interaction II: Dereferencing a URI (illustration)
• Interaction III: Managing Representations
• Interaction IV: Issues Raised by Interaction
• Representation: Data Formats
• Architecture Review of US Patent Office Web Site
• HTTP GET Used for Database Lookup
• HTTP GET Used for Unsafe Interactions (not good)
• URI for Patent is Actually URI for Search (not optimal)
• Cost of Arbitrarily Different URIs ("Aliases")
• Identify Results of Search, not Search
• POST used to protect sensitive login data (design choice)
• Current Status of Architecture Document
• Future Work
• Be Involved!