In 2009 the Internet celebrated its 40^th anniversary, and the World Wide Web had been in existence for over 15 years. The concepts of computer networks and hypertext on which these technologies rely are only a little older. And yet the speed of development of these technologies, the speed of uptake by companies, and the speed of acceptance by consumers is unlike anything mankind has witnessed. Although both the Internet and the Web are firmly rooted in academic, altruistic endeavour, there is no doubt that the commercial interests are currently driving much of the technological development. This module aims to prepare you for contributing to this endeavour by helping you to understand the basic ideas and technologies behind the Internet, and giving you the opportunity to design and write Web pages using HTML and JavaScript.

The module starts here with, inevitably, the more theoretical aspects of the Internet and the Web. We begin by explaining hypertext before moving on to the most elaborate hypermedia system, the Web, and the ideas of client-server computing that allow us to use it.