History of HTML
Table of Content:
In 1989, Tim Berners-Lee, working at the European particle physics institute known as CERN (Centre European pour la Recherche Nucleaire), proposed a system to allow scientists to share papers with other using electronic network in methods. His idea became what is called the World-Wide Web. Since these documents were to be shared, some common method coding them needed to be developed. Tim Berners-Lee suggested that it be based on the already existing SGML. Here are a few quotes from a 1990 CERN memo that Berners-Lee wrote: Hypertext is a way to link and access information of various kinds as a web of nodes in which the user can browse at will. It provides a single user-interface to large classes of information (reports, notes, data-bases, computer documentation and on-line help).
A program which provides access to the hypertext world we call a browser… It would be inappropriate for us (rather than those responsible) to suggest specific areas, but experiment online help, accelerator online help, assistance for computer center operators, and the dissemination of information by central services such as the user office and CN [Computing & Networks] and ECP [Electronics & Computing for Physics] divisions are obvious candidates.
WorldWideWeb (or W3) intends to cater for these services across the HEP [ High Energy Physics ] community. As you can see, Tim Berners-Lee put all of the basic pieces into place. In 1992, when there were all of 50 web servers in the world, CERN released the portable Web browser as freeware. Marc Andreessen, who was working at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications, created a browser called Mosaic which was released in 1993. Shortly after that, he left NCSA to found Netscape.
The first version of the Netscape browser implemented HTML 1.0.
HTML Versions
Since the early days of the web, there have been many versions of HTML:
| Version | Year |
|---|---|
| HTML | 1991 |
| HTML 2.0 | 1995 |
| HTML 3.2 | 1997 |
| HTML 4.01 | 1999 |
| XHTML | 2000 |
| HTML5 | 2014 |
HTML 1.0 and 2.0
In 1991, Berners-Lee and the CERN team released the first draft HTML 1.0, which was finalized in 1993. This specification was so simple it could be printed on one side of a piece of paper, but even then it contained the basic idea that has become central in the recent evolution of HMTL, which is the separation between logical structures and presentational elements. This is the most important single idea to grasp in learning HTML, IMHO. In 1994, HTML 2.0 was developed by the Internet Engineering Task Force’s HTML Working Group. This group later was disbanded in favor of the World Wide Web Consortium (http://www.w3.org), which continues to develop HTML.
W3C takes over: HTML 3.0 and HTML 3.2
The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), which had taken over HTML development, attempted to create some standardization in HTML 3.0. But there was so much argument over what should be included that it never got beyond the draft discussion stage. Finally, in 1996 a consensus version, HTML 3.2, was issued. This added features like tables, and text flowing around images, to the official specification, while maintaining backwards compatibility with HTML 2.0. This also is a convenient place for marking the divergence in practice from the separation that Berners-Lee first made between logical structures and presentational elements. And as the Web took off in popularity, this breakdown became widespread and serious. The main focus of the W3C since then has been to rectify the situation. An example of this is the widespread use of tables and transparent "shim" GIFs to create page layout. While this creates pages that are visually correct, the logical structure of the page is pretty much destroyed, and such pages are frequently useless to anyone using a text browser, or a text-to-speech parser.
HTML 4.0x
The W3C released the HTML 4.0 specification at the end of 1997, and followed with HTML 4.01 in 1999, which mostly corrected a few errors in the 4.0 specification. This release attempted to correct some of the more egregious errors that 3.2 had allowed (encouraged?) designers to commit, particularly in introducing Cascading Style Sheets. But in fact the W3C has abandoned HTML as the default standard in favor of a move back towards the root of SGML, a larger and more complex language. There will probably never be another HTML specification.
XHTML 1.0
This is the successor to HTML. The "X" stands for Extensible. This is a reformulation of HTML 4.01 within XML (Extensible Markup Language), which is far more rigorous, and is intended to start moving the creation of Web pages away from HTML. This was released earlier this year, and is the most current standard for creating Web pages. This introduces some interesting changes in coding. For example, virtually all tags now have to be closed, including paragraph tags. Other tags, like the FONT tag, have been banished in favor of using Cascading Style Sheets to control all presentational elements.
HTML5
By mid-2004, people started to sense lethargy in W3C's development of web standards. Therefore, a group called WHATWG (Web Hypertext Application Technology Working Group) was formed in June 2004. WHATWG is a small, invitation- only group that was founded by individuals from Apple, Mozilla Foundation and Opera Software. They started working on the specifications in July 2004 under the name Web Applications 1.0. The specifications were submitted to W3C and readily accepted. By 2007, W3C adopted the specifications as a starting point of the new HTML called HTML 5.
By the time the first public draft of HTML 5 was published, the word around was that HTML 5 would redefine the web, obsolescing the likes of Adobe Flash, MS Silverlight and Java FX. The promise was that all browsers would use a standard video codec, which would be based on a more open standard. However, reality could not compete with this common dream. Because of strong opposition from the corporates, like Apple and Nokia, HTML 5 cannot specify a standard video codec for all web development.
The First Public Working Draft of the specification was published January 22, 2008. The specifications will be an ongoing work for many years but there is good news for us. The WHATWG has said that parts of HTML 5 will be incorporated into browsers as and when they are finalized. We won't need to wait until the whole specification is completed and approved to start using some of the features of HTML 5.