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Edison Ade
Edison Ade Subscriber

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‪What is HTTP?

Explain to a novice.‬

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cesarwibaut profile image
César Wibaut • • Edited

If you want a simple explanation, HTTP is like a language. You talk in english, your browser mostly talk in HTTP.

When you search "dev.to" in your browser, it will ask the dev.to server with HTTP (just a specific syntax) to get the right file, and the dev.to server will return the webpage with the same language so your browser can understand. HTTP includes some meta-data to help your browser to understand what's going on, like status code (if the server had a problem, if the server can't find the file, etc) or even what type of data it's looking for (HTML file, plain text, image..)

You can just see HTTP a language that you never have to read if it's not your job, but without it, internet won't be as fun

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buzzedison profile image
Edison Ade •

Oh wow. This is really good.

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nickytonline profile image
Nick Taylor •

I highly recommend giving Julia Evans a follow on Twitter. I recently bought this Zine from her, HTTP: Learn your browser's language!. I haven't finished it yet, but I like her approach to teaching concepts in general.

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buzzedison profile image
Edison Ade •

Awesome. Will follow her and check it out.

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jacobmgevans profile image
Jacob Evans •

What have you figured out and what are you still stuck on?

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buzzedison profile image
Edison Ade •

Not stuck. Was looking to get different perspectives and comments as I prepare my notes to teach a class

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jacobmgevans profile image
Jacob Evans •

My perspective just comes from the Mozilla Developer Network and OSI Model... I know that's not terribly helpful 😅😆

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jacobmgevans profile image
Jacob Evans •

What I mean though is I've read a lot of these resources located on this page developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/W...

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buzzedison profile image
Edison Ade •

Got it lol

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buzzedison profile image
Edison Ade •

Http is how we transfer files on the internet. When you type a website address on your browser, you are making an HTTP request. You want something from that address.