HTML stands for Hypertext Markup Language. Hypertext is text which contains link to other text. Markup refers to tags and elements used in a document. Markup languages are not same as programming languages instead they are special languages that use tags to annotate or markup documents.
First version of HTML was released in 1991 along with web browser and web server. First web page was created in 1999 by Sir Tim Berners-Lee who originally proposed HTML. He worked at European Organization for Nuclear Research. Sir Tim Berners-Lee often used to think how he and his colleagues from around the world could share information and this question was so relevant at that time and actually started the development of HTML.
That was all about the history of HTML. Now lets discuss about the basics. As I already mentioned HTML is a markup language. It contains set of markup tags and is used for creating the structure of web pages. HTML files have .html suffix. Suppose you visit a website so the first page returned to the browser is often called index.html. HTML document is made up of many HTML tags and elements.
What are HTML tags and elements?
HTML tags are special words written with angular brackets < >. We use HTML tags to create HTML elements like paragraphs, headings, sections, links, forms, insert elements etc etc. In other words, HTML tags tell browsers where to put images, headings, forms, links, sections etc.
Paragraphs are written within <p></p> tag, <p> is opening tag and </p> is closing tag headings are written according to its importance within tags between <h1></h1> to <h6></h6>, similarly for section we use <section></section> tag.
We can also design a text. For example for italic text we write text with <i></i>, to make it bold we use <b></b> tag. More interesting part is HTML tags can also be used within tags. Like, <p> This is a <b>paragraph</b></p>.
There are certain rules and standards for HTML tags and elements known as HTML specification which is maintained by World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). Whenever rules changes a new version of HTML is standardized, current version of HTML is HTML5.
So what did you learnt about HTML? HTML provides basic structure to a web page that is it tells what are the content of a web page. Some images, some headings, some paragraphs etc. But if you want to tell the browser how a web page should look then CSS comes into play. We will learn about CSS in detail later but for now just understand that CSS is used to give styling to a web page. Here I have a suggestion for you, I know you are desperate to learn new things especially this development part but don't just focus on learning fast and by saying leaning fast I mean don't just sit for whole day watching lectures to complete course if you are doing but focus on leaning well and practice. Practice by doing beginner level web development projects because practice makes perfection. Finishing only lectures one after the other doesn't mean you are learning fast. If you actually want to learn things faster than others then do what others are not doing. This may help you => Read tricks to learn programming faster.
If you are learning something or any language then it is very much important to know the pros and cons of it.
Advantages of HTML -
• It is easy to learn and implement.
• It is open source.
• It is a markup language.
• It is light weight.
• It is browser friendly. It works in Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Opera, Brave, Microsoft Edge, etc. i.e., almost all browsers supports HTML.
Disadvantages of HTML -
• It is a static language i.e., it cannot produce dynamic output.
• It is time consuming. We need to write a lot of code to create a simple web page.
• It is not much secured.
Despite all these disadvantages, it is the most important language to learn if you want to be a front end developer as it is impossible to work in front end development without this essential language. It is so much popular that HTML is used on 98% of all websites in the world. Along with HTML CSS and JavaScript, you need to learn other programming languages also and there are lots of programming languages in the market to confuse you which to learn. But don't worry we got you covered, read Best Programming Languages to learn for Web Development.
Lets learn about how it works. Lets have some technical discussion which will help you to understand what actually happens when we type something on address bar of our browser which eventually will help to understand HTML more clearly.
How Page Requests are handled in back end ?
Basically, we need to understand client - server relationship. Servers are devices that store all the resources and provide services to other computer programs and its users. Servers are always connected to the networks. Clients are devices that we use personally i.e., laptops, mac book, tablets, mobile phones, etc. It is very common to use networks like Local Area Network (LAN) or Wide Area Network (WAN).
LAN is a network that we share locally that is suppose we have two computers in a room and they are sharing one server i.e., suppose we have one printer or any other resource but only one and two computers are sharing that one printer you may have seen this in cyber cafes. WAN is a network that we share on wide range i.e., lets take an example of a company which have three branches one in India, other in New York and Singapore. They have one common server which can be accessed by everyone who works in the company but no one outside.
The largest wide area network is the Internet which can be accessed by everyone in the World. So on internet whenever you are searching something then you are actually accessing the servers. Whenever you type something on the internet you become the client who is requesting a web page and server needs to respond with appropriate files. So whenever you are typing in address bar, you are actually typing in URL (Uniform Resource Locator) which have three parts. One http (HyperText Transfer Protocol) or https. Second domain name and third file name(optional). http and https is a same idea but https is just more secure protocol. That's why it is suggested that whenever you are providing your password on any website you must make sure that the website is having https and not http. What is domain?
Domain are some recognizable name just like shops in the market with different name just to recognize which is a grocery shop, jewelry shop etc similarly on internet people have given their sites a name which are called domain name so that people remember their site and what do they provide.
When we make request using URL browser and server communicate using http. Once the web browser gets your request, it displays it to you. The web server responds by sending a web page back to the browser. Once search engine web page is loaded you interact with that page.
Sometimes when you request for something and server fails to respond then you will see 500 error which means server down or 404 error which means page not found. So what happens is whenever you search something it looks up for domains, DNS returns an IP address, then a whole bunch of file starts returning. That is the whole basic thing about the Internet and its working.
Recommended -
• HTML Tags List with Examples A-Z
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