As a C++ programmer, you're going to be asked to do more than create Web pages. You'll be the one who makes the Internet reach its true potential and who creates distributed applications that haven't even been imagined yet. To be successful, you'll have to understand how the Internet works and how to write programs that can access other computers on the Internet.
In this section, you'll start with a primer on the Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) that's used throughout the Internet, and then you'll move up one level to see the workings of HyperText Transport Protocol (HTTP). Then it's time to get something running. You'll assemble your own intranet (a local version of the Internet) and study an HTTP client-server program based on Winsock, the fundamental API for TCP/IP. Finally you'll move on to WinInet, which is a higher level API than Winsock and part of Microsoft's ActiveX technology.