Although many people may have heard of
HTML, very few know what it is and why it is used. This article will attempt to
uncover the basics of HTML, detailing and defining its components, while also
explaining how HTML works and what it is designed to do. However, before I go into detail I would first
like to give a brief history of HTML, and explain why its creation was crucial
to the development of Web pages.
Tim
Berners-Lee, inventor of the World Wide Web, invented HTML as the Webs
publishing language. The article “A history of HTML” talks about how Lee came
up with the idea of HTML, and how he believed it would potentially benefit
those with access to the Web. The article states, “Tim had the idea of enabling
researchers from remote sites in the world to organize and pool together
information. But far from simply making available a large number of research
documents as files that could be downloaded to individual computers, he
suggested that you could actually link the text in the files themselves” .In
other words, Lee wanted to create a tool that would allow cross-references from
one research paper to another. The result of such a tool would mean that while
reading one research paper, you could quickly display part of another paper
that holds relevant text or diagrams. The article further explains how “Tim
thought [this] could be done by using some form of hypertext, some
way of linking documents together by using buttons on the screen, which you
simply clicked on to jump from one paper to another” (cite). However,
hypertext, which had already existed “could only be made to files on the same
computer” (cite). Lee, who was interested in transferring files to computers
across the world, thought of inventing a global hypertext system. The result
was the development of his own software, known as HTTP-used for retrieving
other documents text via hypertext links. With further development and years of
improvement HyperText Markup Language, commonly referred to as HTML was
developed in 1990 by scientist Tim Berners-Lee. With this invention it is now
possible for text files to be transferred between computers, and the creation
of Web pages are now possible. Now that you have a history of HTML and how it
came into existence, the remainder of this paper will explain what HTML is.
The website HTML Source is effective in
explaining what HTML is, how it works, and what it can do. According to the
webpage which features an article titled “What is HTML” “[HyperText MarkUp Language] is a computer language
devised to allow website creation” (cite). The article breaks down the meaning
of HyperText Markup Language stating “HyperText is the method by which you move around on the web-by clicking on special
text called hyperlinks which
bring you to the next page. The fact that it is hyper just means it is not linear — i.e. you can go to any place
on the Internet whenever you want by clicking on links. Markup is what HTML tags
do to the text inside them. They mark it as a certain type of text (italicized text, for example). HTML
is a Language, as it has
code-words and syntax like any other language” (cite). The article also
effectively explains how HTML works. The article explains that HTML consists of a series of short codes which are
typed into a text-file by the site author. These short codes are the tags.
After the tags are created the text is then saved as an html file, and viewed through a browser, like Internet Explorer or Netscape Navigator. The browser reads the file and translates the text into
a visible form, thus rendering the page as the author had intended.
Hypertext
Markup Language continues to expand and improve so that people can continue to
have the best Web experience. Overall, HTML is the language used to create
documents on the Web. It is also used to define the structure and layout of a
web page. In addition to defining the structure of a page, HTML also defines
how a page looks and how special functions work. This is done through the use
of tags which have attributes. For instance, the tag <p> means paragraph
break. These tags, however, are hidden from viewers of a website as their
purpose is to dictate how a page would look to the person viewing the page.
