Courses/Computer Science/CPSC 203/CPSC 203 2007Summer L60/CPSC 203 2007Summer L60 Lectures/Lecture 1

Lecture 1

The objectives of this class were to:

Introduce class to the syllabus, review grading and class standards, determine final topics list
Conduct a class survey that will be used as the dataset for this class to introduce principles of data organization, data analysis, and data presentation
Describe the Origins of the Internet, it's structure, and how that structure is evolving. Link Internet structure to its capabilities and limiations

Hub - a device for connecting other nodes to
TCP/IP - Transmission Control Protocol: Basic communication language of the internet. Allows a document to find its location through a series of numbers (IP Address). This is the orginal communication language that brought about a prototype internet with e-mailing capabilities
HTTP - Hyper Text Transfer Protocol: Another layer of communication language that allows for publishing web pages. This development brought about Internet 1.0
WWW - World Wide Web
HTML - Hyper Text Markup Language: tags that control the display of data on a web page
XML - Extensible Markup Language: allows developers to design their own tags and allows exchange of information between websites. This communication language has forwarded the internet into version 2.0, where google, facebook and similar apps are being used.
Web 1 - This is the first version of the World Wide Web after HTTP was developed
Web 2 - The second version with development tools that allow for services like social networking through XML. Allows linking and exchange of data
Scale-Free Network - as opposed to randomly connected nodes, in a scale-free network there are many very connected nodes and hubs of connectivity that shape the way it operates. It is resistant to random attacks but direct attacks on the hubs are more volatile and can lead to failure.

Email - internet based electronic communication that allows senders and recipients to correspond using a unique personal address

Only connect! That was the whole of her sermon.

Only connect the prose and the passion, and both will be exalted,

And human love will be seen at its height.

Livfe in fragments no longer.

Only connect ...

-- E.M. Forster, Howards End.

Key Take home concepts:

Cartoon history of the Internet (Arpnet(TCP/IP) -- Internet --- Web 1.0(HTTP and HTML) ---- Web 2.0 (XMLs)
The notion of a scale free network
How a scale free network develops (growth, and preferential attachement of new nodes to existing nodes with higher connectedness)
Properties of scale free networks as they relate to the Internet (resistant to random attacks, theoretically vulnerable to directed attacks on hubs, in a scale free network there is no minimum threshold for viral contagion).

.... I'll add a sketch of a scale free network to this page later.

The Laws of the Web. Patterns in the Ecology of Information. 2001. By B.A. Huberman.

Linked. How Everything is Connected To Everythiung Esle and What it Means for Business, Science, and Everyday Life. 2003. By AL Barabasi.

Weaving the Web. The Original Design and Ultimate Desitny of the World Wide Web by its Inventor. 1999. Tim Berners-Lee.