Histrory of HTML
What does HTML mean?
HTML stands for Hyper-Text Markup Language. This means that HTML is a type of coding language that uses a method called markup to create hyper-text. Let’s look at each one of those key phrases a little more closely:
Language
Language is a method of communication. We normally associate language with the words we speak to communicate what we mean. We use these words together to create sentences like “can I help you?” to ask a question or “this is a car” to state a fact or perhaps “2 + 2 = 4” to perform a calculation. The language we use has a structure and syntax, it has rules that help everyone learn and understand it.
A Computer language is also a method of communication. It is the way computers are given instructions to perform various tasks. Like our human language, a computer language has rules in the form of structure and syntax to help programmers learn the language and computers to understand their instructions.
Markup
To markup something you are simply adding some information that will alter the look or function of an object. With HTML we use a sequence of tags that will give the computer instructions about how we want a web page to look. These tags are very simple and are easily understood by a computer but they must follow very strict rules like how they are written and where they need to be located. A computer is not like a human in so far as they do not guess or make assumption, they must be told very very clearly what to do and when.
Hyper-text
Hyper is the Greek for “over” or “beyond”, or something that is more. If we consider the word hyper-text , this suggests it is more than just text or words. And when we think about it, our hyper-text is more since it has been marked up with tags that give it extra information and, as we will see later, can (hyper)link our text to other documents.
So that explains where what HTML literally means, now let’s go back in time to find out where HTML came from!
The History of HTML versions
The idea for HTML first surfaced in 1989 when Tim Berners-Lee, a scientist with CERN, was looking for a way to link digital documents to help scientists navigate the thousands of journals, books and other reference material that they have to read. The problem was that they had to manually find, retrieve and read each publication in the hope that it contained the information they needed at that moment in time. Wouldn’t it be great if they had links inside the documents that automatically opened the file they needed? Well that’s what Tim and his team proposed; an electronic system of document sharing with other scientists. This idea eventually became the WWW that we all know and love today.
HTML 1.0 – 1991
If you had to guess how many web servers there are in the world today you’d be correct in thinking in the millions. But in 1991 there were about 50 web servers in the entire world, mostly in military and academic sites. 1991 is significant because that was also the year that Berners-Lee and the CERN team released the first draft HTML 1.0. This is a pivotal moment in the history if web technology as it marked to moment when the internet as we know it was born.
HTML 1.0 was a very document, in fact it could be written on one side of a single piece of paper. It used tags like:
- <h1>, <h2> up to <h6> for headings,
- <ul>, <ol> and <lI> for lists
- <p> for paragraphs
- and more that we still use today
HTML 2.0 – 1995
Four years after HTML 1.0 was released we saw the release of HTML 2.0. This was another pivotal moment in the development of the web technology as it saw the birth of the governing body for all things World Wide Web related. HTML 2.0 was the product of the Internet Engineering Task Force’s HTML Working Group, which was quite a mouthful. Around this time the group was disbanded in favour of the World Wide Web Consortium, or W3C, which continues to develop HTML today.
HTML 3.2 – 1997
In 1997 the W3C wanted to implement some standardisation in the next version of HTML. For HTML 3.0 they tried to get everybody concerned to agree on a set of standards but disagreement meant that it never got beyond the draft discussion stage. After a lot of back and forth they finally issued HTML 302 in 1997 which was a consensus version. This version of HTML added some groundbreaking features like tables, and text flowing around images.
HTML 4.01 – 1999
In 1999 the W3C released HTML 4.01 which introduced Cascading Style Sheets (CSS). This enabled the full separation of content from presentation. CSS could be embedded within HTML documents or they could be stored externally in separate files making the job of consistent styling across entire websites easier to implement and maintain.
CSS was now used to define how to HTML elements were displayed and the W3C recommended that developers use external style sheets for consistency, reduced code overhead and they could developers can save a lot of repetitive work. These external style sheets are stored in CSS files and could be located anywhere on the internet.
XHTML 1.0 – 2000
In Y2K the W3C released XHTML. The “X” stands for extensible which provided the ability to have new functionality extended without affecting the existing structure. The main changes that were included with this version included:
- A tightening up of structure by making it mandatory that virtually all tags now had to be closed
- Other tags, like the FONT tag, were depreciated in favour of using Cascading Style Sheets to control all presentational elements
- Note: the term depreciated does not mean removed, it means that the depreciated element is no longer recommended and support may be removed at some point in the future. If you ever see that a tag or element you are using is depreciated, you need to consider an alternative to ensure your code remains functional into the future.
HTML5 – 2012
In 2012 the W3C released HTML5 and this is the most current version and will be for the foreseeable future. The major deliverable with HTML 5 was rich media support that removed the necessity for third party plugins the play video and audio files. It also provided better support for web application interaction with local and remote data but it is a work in progress and more features are planned for future releases.
Browser developers like Chrome, Explorer and Opera are busy implementing these new capabilities into their programs but it would be advisable to note that not all features are supported by all browsers so test your web applications well before releasing.
The features of HTML5 are based on HTML, CSS, DOM, and JavaScript. The need for external plugins (like Flash) was reduced and error handling was greatly simplified. We also saw the introduction of new elements that helped replace scripting by markup.
HTML5 is device-independent meaning that it will happily run on any device as long as there is a compatible browser installed. While HTML5 is not strictly open source, the development process of HTML 5 is visible to the public.
There are some new features in HTML5 that are worth noting here:
- The <canvas> element for 2D drawing
- The <video> and <audio> elements for media playback
- Support for local storage
- New content-specific elements, like <article>, <footer>, <header>, <nav>, <section>, and more.
- New form controls, like calendar, date, time, email, url, search, and more.