Before learning HTML, we must understand one important thing. That is, what is HTML?
The full name of HTML is Hyper text Marked Language. This is a markup language. It includes a series of tags. These tags can unify the document formats on the network. You can use it to connect scattered Internet resources into a logical whole. HTML text is descriptive text composed of HTML commands. HTML commands can describe text, graphics, animations, sounds, tables, links, and so on.
Hypertext is a way to organize information. It can associate text and charts in text with other information media through hyperlink method. These interrelated information media may be in the same text. Of course, it may be other documents. It might be files on a computer that is far away from the aspect of geography. This way of organizing information connects information resources in different locations randomly. This provides convenience for people to find and retrieve information.
Tim Berners-Lee and colleague Daniel W. Connolly created HTML. Tim is the inventor of Web. HTML is a markup language. It is the Standard Generalized Markup Language (SGML). The Hypertext documents written in HTML are HTML documents. It can be independent of various operating system platforms. These platforms may include UNIX, Windows, and so on. You can use HTML language to write the information to be expressed into HTML files. Such writing should be in accordance with certain rules. You need to use a dedicated browser to identify these HTML files . This browser will “translate” them into identifiable information. That is the web pages we see at present.
People use HTML as the information representation language of WWW all the time. You need a WWW browser to display the files described in HTML. HTML is a language for creating web files. Via Tag, the browser displays images, sounds, pictures, text animation, movies and other contents. In practice, every HTML document is a static Web page file. This file contains HTML instruction codes. These codes are not programming languages. They are markup structure languages for the display position of data in typesetting web pages. The widespread use of HTML brings the technology of hypertext. You can jump from one topic to another by clicking the mouse. In addition, you can jump from one page to another. There is File Link Hypertext Transfer Protocol with hosts around the world. It specifies the rules and operations that browsers follow when running HTML documents. The formulation of HTTP protocol gives browsers unified rules and standards when running hypertext.
HTML plays an important role in the rapid development of Web. HTML is quite simple. But with the deepening of network application, this defect emerged in a short time. This is especially true with the application of e-commerce. You cannot expand HTML. HTML does not allow application developers to define custom tags. These tags are for specific application environments. You can use HTML for information display only. HTML can set the displaying way of texts and pictures. But it has no semantic structure. That is, HTML displays data according to the layout rather than semantics. With the development of network applications, various industries have different needs for information. Web page is not the only way to display these different types of information. When searching data through search engines, displaying data according to semantics is better than according to the layout.
The shortcomings of HTML lead to its poor interactivity. This defect is difficult to adapt to the requirements of the rapid development of Internet. As the result, XML appeared. It is standard, concise, well-structured and highly extensible.
