What Is HTML? Learning About HyperText Markup Language

When people talk about HTML, most assume it is a programming language. This article explains what HTML is. Let's find out with Mona Media!

What is HTML?

HTML is short for Hypertext Markup Language. It is a combination of hypertext and markup, also known as a hypertext markup language. HTML helps you build and structure the parts of a website or app, and it is commonly used to divide content into paragraphs, headings, links, blockquotes and so on. This is also the answer to the question at the start of this article: is HTML a programming language? HTML cannot be called a programming language; it is only a markup language. HTML marks up data in tags, defines the data and describes its purpose on a web page. Browsers read HTML to recognize which part is a heading, which is a paragraph and which is a link. HTML describes the data to the browser, and the browser uses that description to display the data appropriately. In other words, HTML is a tool for laying out content, while JavaScript, which developers commonly use, is a programming language, and HTML is not.

The history of HTML

• Tim Berners-Lee, a physicist, is the father of HTML. He came up with the idea based on a hypertext system running on top of the internet.
• In 1991, the first version of HTML was published, with 18 HTML tags.
• In 1998, HTML 4.01 was released.
• By 2000, HTML versions had been replaced by XHTML.
• In 2014, HTML was upgraded to HTML5 with clear improvements.

How HTML works

One way to recognize an HTML document is that its file ends in .html or .htm. It can be viewed in any web browser, including Safari, Microsoft Edge and Google Chrome. These browsers read the HTML files and display the content on the internet, where users can read it easily. In practice, a website contains many HTML pages, including a home page, an about page and a contact page. Each of these pages has its own HTML. Each HTML page contains a set of tags, also called elements, which are the building blocks of the page. HTML elements form a tree-like structure of sections, paragraphs, headings and other content blocks. HTML elements have an opening tag and a closing tag, in this form: <tag></tag>.

What does HTML structure look like?

HTML has many kinds of tags. Each tag has a different job and meaning, and they affect each other. Basically, an HTML structure has three parts:

The opening part

The first part is the standard declaration of HTML or XHTML, written as <!DOCTYPE>. It tells the browser which version of HTML the page uses. There are many versions of HTML on the web, and each browser works with a specific one.

The title

This part holds the initial declarations for meta tags, JavaScript, title, CSS and so on. It starts with the <head> tag and ends with the </head> tag. This is where the title goes. The title is displayed on the browser tab of the web page. It is the content between the <title> and </title> tags. The head section also contains declarations with information for SEO.

The body

This part holds the content of the web page and is where that content is displayed. It comes after the head and includes the information you want to show on the page, such as text, images and links. The body starts with the <body> tag and ends with the </body> tag. The <html> and </html> tags sit on the outside, wrapping both the head and the body, so that together they enclose all of the page's content.

Pros and cons of HTML

By learning about the concept of HTML, its importance and structure, and how it works on websites, you can see the whole picture. At the same time, alongside HTML's clear advantages, it also has drawbacks that have yet to be fixed.

Advantages

HTML was created mainly to give web pages their layout and structure. So how well does it serve that original purpose?

• HTML has been around for a very long time, so it has a huge amount of resources and strong support for its community. The community of HTML users keeps growing around the world.
• HTML is open source, so you can use it at no cost.
• HTML works in popular browsers such as Internet Explorer, Chrome, Firefox and Cốc Cốc.
• It is easy to find information and learn HTML, so you can pick it up quickly and apply it to building basic websites.
• Because HTML follows a defined standard maintained by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), markup is clean and consistent.
• HTML is easy to work with because it can be combined with many other languages, such as PHP, Java, Node.js and Ruby. This lets you build a complete website with many features.

Disadvantages

Besides these advantages, HTML has drawbacks that remain unsolved. The biggest is that it can only produce static websites, which display information but offer no interaction for users. So developers have to add JavaScript or a third-party backend language when they want users to be able to interact with the page.

• HTML can usually only handle certain logic and structure. It cannot create anything new or different on its own.
• Some browsers are slow to support new versions of HTML, especially for HTML5.
• Some browsers cannot render the new tags in HTML5 at all.

Software for writing HTML

Today, many tools are built for writing HTML. Choosing the right one for your website is an important first step. Here are the 4 most popular tools for writing HTML.

Notepad ++

It is free software, so it is widely used. Its main advantage is a compact, convenient coding environment with many utilities that help you build websites and software. Notepad++ now supports many other programming languages, such as: PHP, CSS, C++, Java, C#, XML, HTML, Pascal,…

Sublime Text

Sublime Text was first released by Jon Skinner in 2008. It was built on languages such as Python, C++. Sublime Text is very effective as an editor and saves a lot of time thanks to its built-in plugin system. Its latest version is Sublime Text 3, with many standout features, and it is widely used.

PHP Designer

PHP Designer, built from an idea by Michael Pham, was released to the public in 1998. It is now widely used, with users in as many as 200 countries. It has a simple, easy-to-use interface and suits building company-introduction websites. Another advantage is multi-language support.

Dreamweaver

Dreamweaver is popular in many schools and is used to teach programming to students. Dreamweaver has a professional interface and features, with full support that makes it easy for developers to write code for websites, software and apps. It also has many utilities designed for easy operation, and it works with many different programming languages. See also: A programming guide from A to Z for beginners

Common HTML terms

HTML has many different terms, and you need to understand them to use it more easily. Here are the 3 terms that appear most often in HTML files: elements, tags and attributes.

Elements

Elements are the specifications used to define a website's content and objects. In an HTML file, elements are enclosed and defined by angle brackets <>. Commonly used elements include the paragraph <p>, heading levels from <h1> to <h6>, and others such as <a>, <em>, <span> and <strong>.

Tags

A tag is an element enclosed in angle brackets < >. An opening tag marks the start of an element (for example: <div>). A closing tag marks the end of an element and takes the form of a less-than sign, a slash and a greater-than sign (for example: </div>). The content of the element sits between the opening tag and the closing tag.

Attributes

Attributes provide additional information about an element. An attribute has a name and a value, is placed after the element name, and appears inside the opening tag. Attribute format: attribute name + equals sign + quoted attribute value. Example: An <a> element with an href attribute: <a href=”http://shayhowe.com/”>Shay Howe</a>. This article has given an overview of what HTML is and the basics of HTML. We hope the information above gives you a solid foundation in HTML that you can apply in your studies and work.