By: Preethi Ramkumar
Meaning of HTML - "HyperText Markup Language" is the authoring language used to create documents on the World Wide Web (WWW). HTML is similar to SGML, although it is not a strict subset.
HTML defines the structure and layout of a Web document by using a variety of tags and attributes. All the information you'd like to include in your Web page fits in between the tags.
There are hundreds of other tags used to format and layout the information in a Web page. Tags are also used to specify hypertext links. These allow Web developers to direct users to other Web pages with only a click of the mouse on either an image or word(s).
HTML has been in use by the WWW global information
initiative since 1990. This specification roughly corresponds to the
capabilities of HTML in common use prior to June 1994. HTML is an
application of ISO Standard 8879:1986 Information Processing Text and
Office Systems; Standard Generalized Markup Language (SGML).
Originally defined by Tim Berners-Lee and further developed by the IETF with a simplified SGML syntax, HTML is now an international standard (ISO/IEC 15445:2000). Later HTML specifications are maintained by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). HTML was conceived as a simple markup language to render research documents. No one envisioned Web pages turning into multimedia extravaganzas. HTML pages have been reworked, jury-rigged and extended into full-blown applications. As a result, the source code behind today's Web pages is often a hideous concoction of tags and scripting.
Early versions of HTML were defined with looser syntactical rules which helped its adoption by those unfamiliar with web publishing. Web browsers commonly made assumptions about intent and proceeded with rendering of the page. Over time, the trend in the official standards has been to create an increasingly strict language syntax; however, browsers still continue to render pages that are far from valid HTML. The current version of the HTML specification is now XHTML 1.0, this being very similar to the earlier HTML 4.01 that it replaces. The change from HTML to XHTML applies the stricter rules of XML to HTML to make it easier to process and maintain.
The Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) is a simple markup language used
to create hypertext documents that are platform independent. HTML
documents are SGML documents with generic semantics that are
appropriate for representing information from a wide range of
domains. HTML markup can represent hypertext news, mail,
documentation, and hypermedia; menus of options; database query
results; simple structured documents with in-lined graphics; and
hypertext views of existing bodies of information.
[Network Working Group ]
In computing, HyperText Markup Language (HTML) is a markup language designed for the creation of web pages and other information viewable in a browser. HTML is used to structure information -- denoting certain text as headings, paragraphs, lists and so on -- and can be used to define the semantics of a document.
[Wikipedia]
XML (Extensible Markup Language) is a flexible way to create common information formats and share both the format and the data on the World Wide Web, intranets, and elsewhere. For example, computer makers might agree on a standard or common way to describe the information about a computer product (processor speed, memory size, and so forth) and then describe the product information format with XML. Such a standard way of describing data would enable a user to send an intelligent agent (a program) to each computer maker's Web site, gather data, and then make a valid comparison. XML can be used by any individual or group of individuals or companies that wants to share information in a consistent way. [Techtarget]
HTML is a computer language devised to allow website creation. These websites can then be viewed by anyone else connected to the Internet. It is relatively easy to learn, with the basics being accessible to most people in one sitting; and quite powerful in what it allows you to create. It is constantly undergoing revision and evolution to meet the demands and requirements of the growing Internet audience under the direction of the » W3C, the organisation charged with designing and maintaining the language.
[yourhtmlsource]
HTML is a markup language (the ML in HTML) that uses a fixed set of markup tags. A markup language can also be thought of as a "presentation language," but it is not a programming language. You cannot "if this-do that" like you can in Java, JavaScript or C++. However, in order to make pages interactive, programming code can be embedded in an HTML page. For example, JavaScript is widely interspersed in Web pages (HTML pages) for that purpose. [Answers.com]
HTML is the simple and powerful language used to describe web pages, and is still used as the main interface language to the web.
[livinginternet]
The HyperText Markup Language (HTML) is a simple data format used to create hypertext documents that are portable from one platform to another. HTML documents are SGML documents with generic semantics that are appropriate for representing information from a wide range of domains.
[HTML application of ISO Standard ]
