What is HTML?

Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) provides the foundation for the Web and makes all Web things possible. HTML as we know it was created by Tim Berners-Lee at the European Laboratory for Particle Physics (CERN) during the early 1990s. Berners-Lee's work gathered many scattered pieces, put them into place as part of a whole, and created a glue that would keep them all together and allow them to run on any platform with any software.

To communicate and share data while using different computer platforms and software, Berners-Lee created a plan. A large, shared database of information. It was spread out over as many computers as necessary, and no one was in charge of it. Hypertext would be used to query the database and could create relationships between the data with hyperlinks. Berners-Lee called his concept the World Wide Web.

It is a great concept. But inorder to make it a reality Berners-Lee had to overcome other issues like:

• How to incorporate incompatible platforms, operating systems, and software into a single system.

• How to create a robust hierarchical system that would stand the test of time.

• How to deal with nontextual information.

• How to organize information without limiting the indexing to one particular format or perspective.

The ultimate solution to all of these problems was a distributed hypertext system. Participants kept data on their own computers, which were connected to a publicly available network to facilitate access. Once the ultimate public network, the Internet, was incorporated into the system it truly would become a World Wide Web. Making the solution a reality involved creating client and server software; generating appropriate protocols such as Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP); and, of course, creating HTML as the universal language of the Web.

The Web and HTML are part of an advanced communication system that allows people all around the world to share any kind of information. Also HTML have the following qualities.

• Basic HTML is straightforward and easy to learn.

• HTML files are plain-text files that can run on any computer system.

• HTML is developed to describe a document's structure and make it easier to communicate regardless of formatting

• HTTP functions as part of the standardized, noncommercial TCP/IP protocol suite, which all major networking systems support.

The newer, more glamorous technologies, such as animation and advanced multimedia demanded by the commercialization of the Web. HTML expanded and improved by responding to both users' and developers' demands for extended capabilities. The W3C HTML standards committee is attempting to change this current trend in developer control of HTML by moving much more quickly to improve the HTML standards.

Next>

What is HTML?
HTML Evolution
HTML Tags
HTML Tag List
HTML Character Entities
HTML Color Names and Values
Want to learn more?