The Development of HTML and the Modern Age of Computing, Essay Example

The concepts behind Hypertext Markup Language, or HTML, predate the development of the Internet by decades. Dr. Vannevar Bush, who had been an advisor to President Franklin Roosevelt, proposed a concept called “Memex” in the 1940s that would link text and graphics together through mechanical means. Scientist Ted Nelson further explored this idea in the 1960s, and it was Nelson who first coined the term “hypertext.” The concept finally became reality in 1989, when Tim-Berners-Lee developed his concept of hypertext markup language. Berners-Lee envisioned a way in which text could be dynamically linked among documents. Berners-Lee based his html largely on SGML (Standard Generalized Markup Language), a widely-accepted protocol for marking up text. SGML offered a standardized method for marking text into “structural units” like paragraphs and headings. By bracketing items within markup tags, standardized formatting of html documents was possible.

Extensible Markup Language, or XML, is a protocol for transporting and storing data, while HTML is a protocol for displaying data. HTML, for example, is used for designing a web page, or for posting in areas where HTML formatting is available. XML is useful for creating documentation, or for the development of databases. It is easy to understand and to read XML documentation, making it ideal for such purposes.

In the early days of mobile web-browsing, developers had to create separate web pages using Wireless Markup Language (WML) to send to mobile phones. Advances in recent years have meant that mobile users can now visit the same pages that computer users visit, though there are still some issues that web designers must consider where mobile browsing is concerned. The biggest issue is screen size; users may have some difficulty pressing buttons on a small screen, for example. A capable designer must consider such issues as size and placement of these buttons, as well as other issues such as column width and general screen layout.

References

http://www.brighthub.com/internet/web-development/articles/6074.aspx

http://techforum4u.com/content.php/318-What-is-the-difference-between-HTML-and-XML

http://www.w3.org/People/Raggett/book4/ch02.html