I'm really looking for advice and a starting point more than anything. So I'll try my best to explain my end goals and the challenge. I want to set up a local WiFi connection (P2P) between a Rpi3 (or any embedded system really, running linux) and a laptop. The Pi should be the server and laptop the client. The raspberry PI is going to be reading samples over USB from an SDR. I want the laptop to be able to connect to the network the pi throws up, and be able open a browser and view the results. I'm guessing what i need to read up on is ports/sockets and web programming in general. The cheepy IoT sensors and light bulbs seem to be able to do this (opening network and forwarding data) relatively easily but i cannot find any information online to aid in my quest. All the Best and thanks in advance.
Since the embedded system will be running Linux, you can do something along the following lines:
setup the wifi as an Access Point (example). Also setup DHCP Server (example), so the wifi will assign an IP address to connecting laptop.
Install a webserver (e.g. Apache).
Create the webpage/ web application you need to "serve" the data. Install this into Apache.
Ask follow-up questions if you like.