WWW: Beyond the Basics

Chapter 13 - HTML

13.2.2 What is Hypertext Markup Language?

HTML is a text markup language. If you've ever used the reveal codes option in some word processors, then you are probably familiar with markup. (Powell) HTML is not a programming language, although it can be viewed as a "glue" that holds together many programming languages, such as JAVA, PERL, and C++. (Java and CGIs are discussed in detail in other chapters in this book and will not be covered here.)

HTML is an application of ISO Standard 8879:1986 Information Processing Text and Office Systems; Standard Generalized Markup Language (SGML.)

The "text/html" Internet Media Type (RFC 1590) and MIME Content Type (RFC 1521) is defined by the SGML specification (ISO Standard 8879:1986).

SGML is a type of markup used on IBM mainframes to generate formatted documents. It is a sign-style language where one type style is set and stays set until another tag is encountered, which is the same way HTML works.

There are certain constraints that are meant to be followed when using HTML. The following list of requirements is quoted from the W3C's position statement regarding HTML. (Raggett)

Requirements

A simple scalable document format that can be used for information exchange on virtually any platform:

The document format should be, as far as practical, backwards compatible with existing HTML documents. It should support both paged and scrolling layout models. It should work well with separate style sheets, but not require support for this in browsers. It should support the common needs of information providers for delivering services over the World Wide Web. It should be practical to create HTML documents by directly editing the markup; with WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get - that is, the input looks just like the output) editors for HTML; with filters from common word processing formats; and from other SGML document types.

It should work well with separate style sheets, but not require support for this in browsers. It should support the common needs of information providers for delivering services over the World Wide Web. It should be practical to create HTML documents by directly editing the markup; with WYSIWYG editors for HTML; with filters from common word processing formats; and from other SGML document types.

The use of HTML has quickly evolved out of the basic tenets that allowed it to happen in the first place. This seems to be mostly facilitated by Netscape writing Web browsers that support HTML that is not in the publicly agreed on specifications. (Being a member of the W3C does not seem to require a company to go by its statement of direction.)

The next section takes a look at the history of HTML and its specifications.


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Copyright © 1996 Pris Sears, All Rights Reserved

Pris Sears <sears@vt.edu>