Welcome to your first step in learning to build for the web! Before we write a single line of code, the most important thing is to understand the role of our main tool: HTML.
Many beginners get confused about what HTML is and what it isn't. The simplest way to understand it is to think of a human body.
The Web's Human Body Analogy
If a website were a person, it would be built with three layers:
HTML (The Skeleton): The bones that give the body its structure and shape. It defines where the head is, where the arms are, where the spine is, and so on. It's the core structure.
CSS (The Appearance): This is the skin, hair color, and clothing. CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) takes the skeleton and makes it look good by adding colors, fonts, and layouts.
JavaScript (The Actions): This is the nervous system and muscles. JavaScript (JS) handles interactivity—clicking a button, submitting a form, and creating dynamic effects.
In this tutorial series, we are focusing only on the skeleton: HTML.
A Brief History of HTML
HTML wasn't born overnight. It was created by Tim Berners-Lee in 1991 while he was working at CERN. The original version was very simple, with only about 18 tags. Its main purpose was to allow scientists to share documents and research papers.
Through the 1990s, HTML evolved rapidly (HTML 2, 3, 4), leading to the "browser wars" where different browsers supported different tags. To standardize things, the web moved towards a stricter language called XHTML in the early 2000s. However, it was too complex.
Finally, in 2014, the modern standard we use today was finalized: HTML5. It's powerful, flexible, and the foundation of every modern website.
So, What Does HTML Stand For?
HTML stands for HyperText Markup Language.
HyperText: This refers to the ability to create "hyperlinks" that connect web pages to one another. It's what makes the web a "web."
Markup: This refers to the special "tags" we use to mark up our text to tell the browser what it is. We "mark" a piece of text as a heading, a paragraph, or an image.
Language: It's a standard language that all web browsers understand.
What HTML is NOT
It's equally important to know that HTML is not a programming language. It can't do math, it has no logic, and it can't handle complex operations. Its job is simple and vital: to provide structure and meaning to the content on a web page.
What's Next: Now that you know what HTML is and where it came from, it's time to get our hands dirty. In our next lesson, we will write your very first HTML page!