[Deep Dive]

[HTML - Introduction: Hyper Text and the Web with Nick Petit]

In the previous video, we said that HTML consists of two major ideas

that are in the name HTML.

There's the idea of hyper text and the idea of markup languages.

We've already talked about markup languages and we are going to delve

a little bit deeper there. Then we will take a look at a hypertext.

HTML typically describes the structure of the document, as opposed

to describing how the document should be visually displayed or processed.

A markup language like HTML is used to markup or annotate a document

so that the computer knows how to differentiate the different pieces of text.

For example, with our basic text sentences we could wrap them in

tags

so that when they are interpreted the web browser knows that they should be processed as paragraphs.

You can also tell the web browser what parts of the document are images,

what parts are tabular data like you would see in a spreadsheet application, and so on.

We'll dive deep into tags and real HTML code over the next several videos,

but first we need to understand how we got here and why things are the way they are.

Many markup languages have been created going all the way back

to the 1960's and start of the information age.

However, HTML is likely the most widely used markup language in the world.

HTML was originally created by CERN,

the French acronym for The European Organization for Nuclear Research.

HTML was heavily influenced by an SGML based language,

or standard generalized markup language.

The customized SGML at CERN was used as an in-house document format

for scientific research, and originally HTML was conceived as an improvement on this.

HTML was just meant to be a document format for research papers,

which is the origin of technical vernacular like

page, document, doctype 4, document type, and so on.

In its first iteration, HTML documents were never really intended

to be as interactive as we expect them to be today.

This is a very key concept to keep in mind

and where remembering history will help you.

Web technology has evolved greatly towards creating

rich web applications, but in essence,

we're still just hacking on top of the original idea

of sending around text documents and that's perfectly okay.

Now, before we talk about hypertext on the web,

an important distinction needs to be made.

The Internet refers to the physical infrastructure

that is spread across the globe—

the network of networks that consists of wires, computers,

servers, switches, satellites, and so on

that allow us to transport data all over the world at incredibly high speeds.

When building websites it is good to be aware

that all this hardware is there, but its not much of a concern to us.

The worldwide web, or the web for short,

is one particular use case or application of the internet.

There are many other use cases, or protocols on the internet

such as voice over IP, online gaming, application stores on smart phones, and so on.

However, these other pieces of software are using the internet

and are not part of the web, which as web professionals, is our primary concern.

Now that we have discussed the markup side of things,

lets finish our historical lesson by taking a look at hypertext,

which is actually far easier to understand.

Remember when we said that HTML was created at CERN?

Sir Tim Berners-Lee was the physicist and contractor at CERN

that is credited with inventing HTML, along with the worldwide web.

In the late 1980's and very early 1990's

when the Internet was just coming out of it's infancy, there was no HTML,

no web browsers, and there certainly weren't any websites as we know them today.

When Sir Tim Berners-Lee was working at CERN in the 80's,

he wanted to develop a better way of sharing documents,

and by drawing inspiration from previously created markup languages

he came up with the first version of HTML.

As we said before, HTML was very similar to another markup language called SGML,

but Sir Tim Berners-Lee made the very key addition of hypertext.

Hypertext is simply the idea of documents that are capapble of being linked together.

A piece of text or an image in an HTML document

can reference another HTML document

that the user reading the material can immediately access.

In modern times this is known as a hyperlink or just as a link for short.

The idea of hypertext came much earlier than the web,

but it was Sir Tim Berners-Lee that connected the ideas of

hypertext and markup languages to create the HTML specification

which is used to describe the structure of most web pages today.

In 1994, Tim Berners-Lee founded the World Wide Web Consortium

or W3C for short.

The W3C is comprised of many companies that to this day

continue to maintain the HTML specification

and further it's development for the betterment of the web.

Remember, it's not critical that you memorize all of this;

however, by understanding some of the history of HTML

you'll have a better frame of reference in understanding

the role that HTML plays in the grand scheme of things.

In the next video, we will go back to coding