What is HMTL?

What is HMTL?

That is a common question, but it is actually HTML standing for Hypertext Markup Language. It is often scrambled up by people because it has no meaning to them, just a bunch of letters.

It is often referred to as HotMetal which was actually an HTML editor used in the early internet years. But the term HotMetaL makes it slightly easier to remember.

HTML is the language used to assemple pages by web browsers. A series of tags represented by greater than and less than signs <> enclose terms that tell the browser how to format the page for vieweing.

for example to make text bold you would use <b>Text</b> and it would appear in the page as Text.

The language is very simple and covers only static page functions. To build more interactive pages you need a programing language like perl to process data.

HTML is for formating text and images and creating a page using smaller pices. This makes transfering pages more efficient by sending the parts to you in bunches and allowing your computer to do the assembly.

Today WYSIWYG editors will write the code for you. Using drop and drag page building the program converts what you see to HTML code that the computer can convert back into what you see. It seems like a big circle for nothing, but that is the way it works.

Just like your computer converts the actions you take into binary data and back into a GUI that you can use. Its just the way it works.

HTML has become less significant to learn than in the past, but it is still the driving tool for every web page on every website on the internet.