Most of today's Internet technologies are based on the long-used, most debated HTML language. It was designed to perform the markup and formatting of documents posted on web pages. The language began to acquire its first features in 1986. The impetus was the adoption by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) ISO-8879-standard - Standard Generalized Markup Language or, in abbreviated form - SGML. It was accompanied by a description stating that SGML was intended for structural markup of text. It is noteworthy that the description of the appearance of the document was not intended.

Based on this, we can conclude that SGML was not a system for marking up text and did not have any list of structural elements of the language used in certain conditions... The language implied a description of the syntax for writing the main elements of markup. After some time, they received a well-known name today - "tags".

The need to create a language that:

  • Described which element in which cases it is reasonable to use
  • Contained a list of elements with which you can create a document readable by different programs

Despite the fact that the SGML language, like its similar applications, did not receive much development, it was not completely forgotten. In 1991, the European Institute of Particle Physics announced the need to develop a mechanism to transmit hypertext information through the global network. It was SGML that formed the basis of the future language - Hyper Text Markup Language (HTML).

Stages of formation.

About forty tags contained HTML version 1.2. There was also no description of the physical presentation of the documents. Like its progenitor, SGML, it was predominantly focused on logical and structural markup of text. However, a number of tags did make some hint of how the page would be physically presented.

The development of HTML version 2.0 was taken up by the W3C consortium. The first result was obtained after a year of intensive work - in 1995. The possibilities of version 3.0 were discussed almost in parallel. If the second version cannot be called significantly different from the first, then the third became an unconditional breakthrough.

HTML 3.0 included interesting new features:

  • Marking up mathematical formulas
  • Tags for creating pages
  • Insert pictures with text wraps
  • Notes, etc.

However, this was not enough, the need for visual design of hypertext pages became more and more urgent. Then, W3C began to create an independent system, while not contradicting HTML basics, but allowing to describe the visual design of documents. The result was the emergence of CSS - Cascading Style Sheets, hierarchical style specifications endowed with a unique syntax, structure, tasks.

But let's not get ahead of ourselves and get back to HTML. The significant expansion of tags came at the behest of Netscape Communications, the corporation that launched the first commercial browser, Netscape Navigator. The innovations pursued only one goal - to improve the appearance of the document, but at the same time they completely contradicted the original principles of the language.

HTML version 3.2 was created in no time. It was targeting Microsoft Internet Explorer... Until recently, this version of HTML was the only language standard for. Nevertheless, the direction is developing very actively, with the help of HTML it was possible to give some order to the markup elements of all browsers, but the language's capabilities were becoming insufficient.

In 2004 they adopted new version HTML - 4.01. It provides excellent cross-browser and cross-platform performance.

Why is CSS being used more and more today? Because HTML, despite its significantly expanded capabilities since its inception, remains a language of logical markup of hypertext, i.e. not related to the design of the document. Modern Internet standards imply the creation of bright and memorable pages, so webmasters are increasingly using CSS. Is it possible to put an end to the history of HTML? The answer to this question will be rather positive, but the language will not disappear completely, because it underlies many other systems.

Lesson 1

Topic: "My first Internet page"

What is HTML. History of creation.

Before we get started, let's understand what HTML is and what is it for? HTML (HyperText Markup Language) is intended for the markup and formatting of documents published on the World Wide Web (WWW), or, more simply, HTML documents. The markup should be understood as service information that is not displayed on the screen, but determines the structure of the document and the appearance of its structural units. The creators made sure that this language is platform independent, i.e. could work in any operating environment. The main elements of the HTML language are descriptors (or tags) - operators whose names are enclosed in angle brackets. Documents marked up with this language are rendered in the same way by end-user browsers in most cases, due to the fact that they "understand" and correctly process the structural elements of the HTML language. Source is text formatted using descriptors, and the visitor of the Web page does not see these elements, but only the result of their impact on the document.

The father of HTML is considered to be Tim Berners-Lee, who proposed transmitting information to the Internet in the form of hypertext documents with the ability to view them through a web browser. HTML was designed to be a universal language that all computers could understand. An HTML document is a plain text document with markup language elements included. Therefore, you can create an HTML document using any text editor, such as notepad.

The peculiarity of the HTML language is that it, in fact, only gives recommendations to the browser how to interpret this or that element of the language. Those. the same language element can be displayed differently by different browsers. In addition, browser developers began to introduce new elements that were only perceived by their browsers. This is how the so-called "browser war" began. Therefore, a professional developer faces a difficult task - a professionally made website should look the same when viewed in different types of browsers. To do this, you need to "test" your documents during the creation process. The most popular today are Internet browsers Explorer, Netscape Navigator, Mozilla, Opera, which run under the Windows operating system.

At the same time, HTML developers are constantly striving to achieve more and more versatility of the language. The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), an international non-profit organization, is currently responsible for the development of HTML. The consortium has developed three versions of HTML - HTML3.2 (adopted in January 1997), HTML4.0 (adopted in December 1997), XHTML (adopted in January 2002).

Hi everyone. We are already outside the window in 2013, so words such as the Internet, e-mail, website and others do not surprise us. Now a lot of people blog on paid and free resources and use html technology, but few know how this technology is inextricably linked with the development of the Internet and has its own history.

Hypertext Markup in Brief - HTML

History of the development of the Internet and the emergence of HTML

With the advent of computers, the idea of ​​transferring information between them appeared. It took quite a long time to investigate this problem, but a solution was found. To transfer information between computers, cables and various media began to be used. Programs were written to transmit and receive data, and almost immediately the second problem arose - the problem of compatibility: how to make two or more computers work, connected by a cable, to work in a local network.

The official birthday of the Internet is considered January 2, 1969 years when the US Department of Defense's Advansed Research Project Agency (ARPA) began work on a defense computer communications project.

One of the first achievements of the Internet in 1970s became its international application, which led to the creation of electronic mail (Electronic mail), now referred to simply as e-mail. Also during this period of time, newsgroups (Usernet) were created to track news around the world.

The demand for the Internet has led to the development and creation of 1980s the Bitnet network, which was also part of the Internet group, but had nothing to do with either research or military projects. The authors of this network are considered to be specialists from the City University of New York.

IN 1984 year, the DNS (Domain Name System) system, the so-called domain name system, was introduced, which made it possible to establish a relationship between digital and symbolic domain names. Before the use of the DNS system, all site addresses were in the form of IP addresses, which significantly complicated their memorization and perception.

IN 1986 year, the first ISO-8879 standard was adopted by the International Organization for Standardizations, ISO, called SGML (Standard Generalized Markup Language). SGML is an enriched metalanguage that allows you to build systems of logical and structural markup of texts of any kind.

Structural markup- text formatting, in which control codes do not carry any information about the appearance of the document, but only indicate the boundaries and subordination of its constituent parts, that is, they set its logical structure. An SGML document requires a Document Type Definition (DTD). The DTD is sent with an SGML document or included in an SGML document so that user-generated tags can be recognized. The SGML language did not become widespread, but its ideology influenced many computer developments.

IN 1989 year, Oxford University graduate, Bachelor of Science in Physics, Fellow at the European Center for Nuclear Research (CERN) Tim Berners-Lee developed the HyperText Markup Language (HTML), which became the main language for creating web documents and a prototype World Wide Web (WWW). Tim Burns-Lee is the author of the hyperlink ideology. Basically, HTML is a set of SGML prescriptions, formulated as a DTD. In the case of HTML, the document type definition is stored in the browser, and this definition is much simpler than the SGML DTD.

However, it cannot be said that it was Tim Berners-Lee who alone invented everything. All of humanity approached the discovery, having accumulated sufficient knowledge. So, back in the middle of the XX century, Vannevar Bush announced the world a new word - "hypertext", and Ted Nelson proposed to create a "documentary universe", linking all the texts produced by mankind, with cross-references, but in In the early sixties of the twentieth century, this appeal did not cause anything but a condescending smile among the academic public.

In autumn 1990 Years, CERN employees received the first web server and web browser built by Tim Berners-Lee in the NeXTStep environment.

To work with texts, a special HyperText Transfer Protocol (HTTP) was developed. This technology gave a huge boost to the development of the Web, and the Internet has become a truly international network.

If I knew then how many people would be pointing the URL,
I wouldn't use two slashes in the syntax.
Tim Berners-Lee

In summer 1991 year, the WWW project, which conquered the scientific world of Europe, crossed the ocean and joined the American Internet project. A number of new abbreviations have appeared: URL, HTTP, HTML. The outbreak of the rivalry between Europe and America for new information technology came to naught with the move of Tim Berners-Lee to the United States. In 1994, he first headed the department at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and then - the international consortium W3C (World Wide Web Consortium), which plays the role of the center for standardization of the World Wide Web.


The Internet is the union of many local computer networks. Although it is said that the Internet has no master and is not owned by anyone, as shown in the diagram, there is a clear hierarchical structure: backbones, providers, users. The diagram uses the following designations.

  • P- point of presence (Point of Presence, POP). Points of presence refer to the connection points to the backbone of an Internet Service Provider (ISP), or provider serving local users.
  • N- access point (Network Access Points, NAP). Access points, or exchange centers (Internet eXchange, IX), are the places where networks of several providers are united
  • DNS- Domain Name System (DNS) server. DNS servers are used to translate domain names into IP addresses
  • F- file server
  • W- web server (web-server)
  • D- domain

Many companies began to release their own browsers and their own HTML extensions to them, for example, in 1993 the first graphical browser Mosaic was developed. After that, more than a hundred different browsers appeared. The most popular are Netscape Navigator and Microsoft Internet Explorer.

The W3C has developed the standards necessary for the future development of the World Wide Web. IN 1 996 In 2006, the W3C announced a partnership with market leaders to standardize software.

Development of HTML technology

Introduced in 1991 Over the course of the year, the HTML language has been constantly refined and supplemented. Of all these modifications, the following versions are distinguished:

  • HTML 1.0... The first version of the language
  • HTML 2.0... This version (RFC 1866) was developed in 1994 d. The Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) HTML Working Group has introduced the appropriate changes and a set of basic elements. HTML 2.0 has become a standard
  • HTML 3.0 the beginning 1996 d. There have been many innovations, including tags for creating tables, for marking up mathematical formulas, for inserting drawings wrapped around text, for inserting notes, etc. Without breaking the basic concepts of hypertext markup, the authors of version 3.0 introduced a new tool - Cascading Style Sheets (Cascading Style Sheets, CSS)
  • HTML 3.2... This version of the language was implemented in 1996 d. It provided additional elements for creating applets, setting the case of characters, etc. HTML 3.2 was a compromise solution - an attempt to reconcile Microsoft and Netscape and combine their original solutions
  • HTML 4.0... This version of the language was implemented in 1997 d. The second adjusted implementation came out in 1998 d. HTML 4.0 introduced support for multimedia, scripting languages, and document rendering for users with disabilities. In this release, the W3C has indicated that almost all of the attributes that define the appearance of an HTML document (color, alignment, fonts, graphics, etc.) are deprecated, and style sheets and classes are recommended instead. However, most web page developers still use these tags.
  • HTML 4.01... This version was released in 1999 d. In it the shortcomings noticed in the previous version were corrected.
  • HTML 5... Development of this version started in the W3C working group at 2007 and January 22, 2008 G. appeared in the new specification. The specification is still under development and may be at this stage for several more years. However, the Internet is already actively creating sites using this specification.

Other programming languages ​​built to support Html

In support of the HTML language, a whole series of programming languages ​​have been created, such as Java, javascript, Perl, PHP, and so on. With these languages, it became possible to create dynamic web pages that include forms, tables, frames, and other elements.

In February 1998 year... was offered XML language(Extensible Markup Language). This language is similar to HTML in that it uses tags to describe different sections of a document. However, unlike HTML, XML allows developers to define their own tags and map them to their own ways of rendering information. XML descriptors are case sensitive. Latest version Internet Explorer supports XML. For Netscape Navigator, Mozilla (a working group within Netscape) is just experimenting with XML support.

XHTML (Extensible HyperText Markup Language) is a combination of HTML and XML. The W3C consortium, bringing together representatives of over 500 organizations from different countries, recommends using XHTML instead of HTML, however today most developers remain true to HTML.

Dynamic HTML is an attempt to combine the Document Object Model (DOM), JavaScript, and Cascading Style Sheets (CSS). Dynamic HTML allows you to create interactive web pages with enhanced multimedia support. Many Dynamic HTML features are described in the HTML 4.01 specification.

Java language descended from the Oak programming language, which is focused on the Internet. The syntax of the Java language is close to the syntax of the C ++ language. Java programs can be divided into two broad groups. The first group includes Java applications designed for autonomous work under the control of a special Java interpreter machine. Implementations of this machine are made for all major computer platforms. The second group is the so-called applets.

Applet is a small program written in the Java language and included in the HTML file. Another program, such as a web browser, provides an environment for executing Java applets. Unlike applications, applets cannot be directly executed in operating system... The applet code is interpreted by the browser or server. Depending on which of the programs acts as an interpreter, applets can be executed on the client side or on the server side. Java is a compiled language.

javascript is a scripting language that you can use to extend the capabilities of HTML pages. This language was developed by Netscape Communications Corporation for use in the Netscape Navigator web browser (javascript for the client) and web server products (javascript for the server) created by that corporation. Many elements of this language designed to support additional functionality static web pages developed by Sun Microsystem.

Unlike Java applets, which are loaded separately from the HTML document in which they are used, programs written in javascript are embedded directly into HTML documents using the paired tag