Getting Started with HTML

HTML (Hypertext Markup Language) uses a markup system composed of elements which represent specific content. Markup means that with HTML you declare what is presented to a viewer, not how it is presented. Visual representations are defined by Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) and realized by browsers. Still existing elements that allow for such, like the <font> tag, are entirely obsolete, and must not be used by authors.

HTML is sometimes called a programming language but it has no logic, so is a markup language. HTML tags provide semantic meaning and machine-readability to the content in the page.

An element usually consists of an opening tag (<element_name>), a closing tag (</element_name>), which contain the element's name surrounded by angle brackets, and the content in between:

      <element_name>...content...</element_name>

There are some HTML elements that don't have a closing tag or any contents. These are called void elements, such as <img>, <meta>, <link>, and <input>.

Hello World Example

      <!DOCTYPE html>
      <html lang="en">
        <head>
          <meta charset="UTF-8">
          <title>Hello!</title>
        </head>
        <body>
          <h1>Hello World!</h1>
          <p>This is a simple paragraph.</p>
        </body>
      </html>

Simple Page Breakdown

<!DOCTYPE>: Defines the HTML version used in the document. It is HTML5 here.
<html>: Opens the page. The lang attribute declares the primary language (en).
<head>: Contains metadata, imports, title, etc.
<meta>: Provides document metadata, such as charset encoding (UTF-8).
<title>: Sets the page title.
<body>: Contains all visible/audible content of the page.
<h1>: Level 1 heading for the page.
<p>: Represents a paragraph of text.

HTML Version Timeline

Version	Specification	Release Date
1.0	N/A	1994-01-01
2.0	RFC 1866	1995-11-24
3.2	W3C: HTML 3.2 Specification	1997-01-14
4.0	W3C: HTML 4.0 Specification	1998-04-24
4.01	W3C: HTML 4.01 Specification	1999-12-24
5	WHATWG: HTML Living Standard	2014-10-28
5.1	W3C: HTML 5.1 Specification	2016-11-01