The phone book of the internet
Day 7 of 149
👉 Full deep-dive with code examples
The Phone Book
Remember phone books? (Ask your parents! 📚)
You wanted to call Pizza Hut, but you didn't memorize their number.
You looked up: "Pizza Hut" → Found: 555-1234
Then you called 555-1234.
DNS does the same thing for websites!
Computers Use Numbers
Computers don't understand "google.com".
They understand IP addresses (numbers), like <ip-address> for example.com.
That's like a phone number for a computer.
How DNS Works
You type: example.com
Your Browser: "Hey DNS, what's the number for example.com?"
↓
DNS: "Let me check... It's `<ip-address>`"
↓
Your Browser: "Thanks!" → Calls `<ip-address>`
↓
Google's Server: "Hello! Here's your search page!"
Why It Matters
Imagine memorizing numbers for every website:
- (an IP address) (Google)
- (an IP address) (Facebook)
- (an IP address) (Netflix)
Not practical!
DNS lets us use easy names instead.
In One Sentence
DNS translates friendly website names into the number addresses that computers actually use.
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