This draft of the Architecture Document abstract and introduction is derived from the 1 August 2003 Editor's Draft. This draft, for TAG consideration, attempts to keep the essential parts of text from Roy Fielding, while taking into account all of the comments from Dan Connolly and comments from Tim Bray.
The World Wide Web is an information system in which a network of resources is established through hypertext-style links. Web Architecture defines the desired operational behavior of agents within this information system and for protocols that govern interactions between these agents. The Web architecture is influenced by social requirements and software engineering principles, leading to design choices that constrain the behavior of the Web in order for the system to achieve desired properties: an efficient, scalable, shared information space that can continue to grow indefinitely across languages, cultures, and information media. This document is organized to reflect the three dimensions of Web architecture: identification, interaction, and representation.
The World Wide Web (WWW, or simply Web) is an information system in which a network of resources is established through hypertext-style links (discussed in the section on representations).
A vacation travel scenario is used throughout this document to illustrate some typical behavior and interactions of Web agents -- software acting in this system on behalf of a person, entity, or process. Agents include servers, proxies, browsers, spiders, multimedia players, and other user agents (software acting on behalf of a person).
http://weather.example.com/oaxaca
'" in a
glossy travel magazine. Tatiana has enough experience with the Web to
recognize that "http://weather.example.com/oaxaca
" is
a URI. Given the context in which the URI appears, she can expect
that it should allow her to access relevant weather
information.This scenario (elaborated on throughout the document) illustrates the three architectural divisions of the Web that are discussed in this document:
http://weather.example.com/oaxaca
".