Providing Information
Authors can create documents by simply typing files (in plain text, using hypertext SGML markup or a W3 editor) and linking them into the Web. This is most useful in collaborative work: the latest text is accessible on-line, no copies, drafts or out-of-date printouts. If the data is stored in an existing data-base, a server can be tailored to provide its data to the Web. Hypertext links may be made to any data in non-W3 servers (FTP, Gopher, WAIS or internet news) as W3 clients have the ability to present all such data as hypertext.
In the case of an existing information system containing a large mass of information, one should consider writing a server to provide a hypertext view of the data without touching the data itself or the procedures by which the database is maintained (Fig. 4). An existing server may be taken as an example to be modified and enhanced to provide the functionality required. Typically, it is modified to call a program which already exists to access the data. The server merely reformats the W3 document address (and/or search criteria) into a request to the program, and then reformats the program output as hypertext
Software status
The success of the W3 initiative can be attributed to enthusiasts and collaborators in many institutes. The W3 team at CERN has incorporated some of their work into software releases; other work is distributed and maintained by the original authors. This is a summary: details are available on the Web.