(Web Development Series) What is HTML ??
HTML stands for Hypertext Markup Language. It allows the user to create and structure sections, paragraphs, headings, links, and blockquotes for web pages and applications.
HTML is not a programming language, meaning it doesn’t have the ability to create dynamic functionality. Instead, it makes it possible to organize and format documents, similarly to Microsoft Word.
When working with HTML, we use simple code structures (tags and attributes) to mark up a website page. For example, we can create a paragraph by placing the enclosed text within a starting <p> and closing </p> tag.
Overall, HTML is a markup language that is really straightforward and easy to learn even for complete beginners in website building. Here’s what you’ll learn by reading this article.
The History of HTML
HTML was invented by Tim Berners-Lee, a physicist at the CERN research institute in Switzerland. He came up with the idea of an Internet-based hypertext system.
Hypertext means a text that contains references (links) to other texts that viewers can access immediately. He published the first version of HTML in 1991, consisting of 18 HTML tags. Since then, each new version of the HTML language came with new tags and attributes (tag modifiers) to the markup.
According to Mozilla Developer Network’s HTML Element Reference, currently, there are 140 HTML tags, although some of them are already obsolete (not supported by modern browsers).
Due to a quick rise in popularity, HTML is now considered an official web standard. The HTML specifications are maintained and developed by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). You can check out the latest state of the language anytime on W3C’s website.
The biggest upgrade of the language was the introduction of HTML5 in 2014. It added several new semantic tags to the markup, that reveal the meaning of their own content, such as <article>, <header>, and <footer>.
Overviewing The Most Used HTML Tags
HTML tags have two main types: block-level and inline tags.
- Block-level elements take up the full available space and always start a new line in the document. Headings and paragraphs are great examples of block tags.
- Inline elements only take up as much space as they need and don’t start a new line on the page. They usually serve to format the inner contents of block-level elements. Links and emphasized strings are good examples of inline tags.
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