HTML
Hypertext Markup Language is the standard markup language for documents designed to be
displayed in a web browser. It defines the content and structure of web content. It is often assisted
by technologies such as Cascading Style Sheets and scripting languages such as JavaScript.
Web browsers receive HTML documents from a web server or from local storage
and render the documents into multimedia web pages. HTML describes the structure of
a web page semantically and originally included cues for its appearance.
HTML elements are the building blocks of HTML pages. With HTML
constructs, images and other objects such as interactive forms may be embedded into
the rendered page. HTML provides a means to create structured documents by
denoting structural semantics for text such as headings, paragraphs, lists, links, quotes,
and other items. HTML elements are delineated by tags, written using angle brackets.
Tags such as <img> and <input> directly introduce content into the page. Other tags
such as <p> and </p> surround and provide information about document text and may
include sub-element tags. Browsers do not display the HTML tags, but use them to
interpret the content of the page.
HTML can embed programs written in a scripting language such as JavaScript, which
affects the behavior and content of web pages. The inclusion of CSS defines the look
and layout of content. The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), former maintainer of
the HTML and current maintainer of the CSS standards, has encouraged the use
of CSS over explicit presentational HTML since 1997.[3] A form of HTML, known
as HTML5, is used to display video and audio, primarily using the <canvas> element,
together with JavaScript.
History
Development
Tim Berners-Lee in April 2009
In 1980, physicist Tim Berners-Lee, a contractor at CERN, proposed and
prototyped ENQUIRE, a system for CERN researchers to use and share documents. In
1989, Berners-Lee wrote a memo proposing an Internet-based hypertext system.
[4]
Berners-Lee specified HTML and wrote the browser and server software in late 1990.
That year, Berners-Lee and CERN data systems engineer Robert Cailliau collaborated
on a joint request for funding, but the project was not formally adopted by CERN. In his
personal notes of 1990, Berners-Lee listed "some of the many areas in which hypertext
is used"; an encyclopedia is the first entry.[5]
The first publicly available description of HTML was a document called "HTML Tags",
[6]
first mentioned on the Internet by Tim Berners-Lee in late 1991.[7][8] It describes 18
elements comprising the initial, relatively simple design of HTML. Except for the
hyperlink tag, these were strongly influenced by CERN SGML, an in-house Standard
Generalized Markup Language (SGML)-based documentation format at CERN. Eleven
of these elements still exist in HTML 4.[9]
HTML is a markup language that web browsers use to interpret and compose text,
images, and other material into visible or audible web pages. Default characteristics for
every item of HTML markup are defined in the browser, and these characteristics can
be altered or enhanced by the web page designer's additional use of CSS. Many of the
text elements are mentioned in the 1988 ISO technical report TR 9537 Techniques for
using SGML, which describes the features of early text formatting languages such as
that used by the RUNOFF command developed in the early 1960s for
the CTSS (Compatible Time-Sharing System) operating system. These formatting
commands were derived from the commands used by typesetters to manually format
documents. However, the SGML concept of generalized markup is based on elements
(nested annotated ranges with attributes) rather than merely print effects, with separate
structure and markup. HTML has been progressively moved in this direction with CSS.
Berners-Lee considered HTML to be an application of SGML. It was formally defined as
such by the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) with the mid-1993 publication of the
first proposal for an HTML specification, the "Hypertext Markup Language (HTML)"
Internet Draft by Berners-Lee and Dan Connolly, which included an SGML Document
type definition to define the syntax.[10][11] The draft expired after six months, but was
notable for its acknowledgment of the NCSA Mosaic browser's custom tag for
embedding in-line images, reflecting the IETF's philosophy of basing standards on
successful prototypes. Similarly, Dave Raggett's competing Internet Draft, "HTML+
(Hypertext Markup Format)", from late 1993, suggested standardizing already-
implemented features like tables and fill-out forms.[12]
After the HTML and HTML+ drafts expired in early 1994, the IETF created an HTML
Working Group. In 1995, this working group completed "HTML 2.0", the first HTML
specification intended to be treated as a standard against which future implementations
should be based.[13]
Further development under the auspices of the IETF was stalled by competing interests.
Since 1996, the HTML specifications have been maintained, with input from commercial
software vendors, by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C).[14] In 2000, HTML
became an international standard (ISO/IEC 15445:2000). HTML 4.01 was published in
late 1999, with further errata published through 2001. In 2004, development began on
HTML5 in the Web Hypertext Application Technology Working Group (WHATWG),
which became a joint deliverable with the W3C in 2008, and was completed and
standardized on 28 October 2014.
