HTML and the like

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Hi, I'm Jethro Jones, you may remember me from such thought-provoking posts as: His Holiness Bill Gates

Anyway, to get to the subject of my post. Could someone please tell me why HTML, is not a language?

Does it not have little <codelike> things. Does it not contain commands? Is the full name one word?

Does it not take ages to learn? And finally, does it not does something?

I hate all the "not a proper language" insults.

Also someone once told me that MS-DOS Batch wasn't a programming language. Well if it isn't a language, then Shell sure can't be a language!

Thank you,
Jethro Perraza Jones

HTML = HyperText Mark-up Language.

No it does not have commands, only tags.

It is not compiled and is not complicated. It has no syntax really cuz if you break the syntax is still *kind* of works. It does not really do anything by itself.

Learn more at W3 Consortium

HTML = formatting language

You can use it to tell a browser where to position things and in which color and font but you can't really manipulate data (do calculations, etc) with it without using a "helper" language or other code (such as scripting, activex components, java applets, etc).

HTML stands for: Hyper Text Markup Language, and is what (most) of the internet is built upon. And, yes, I beleive it to be a language. It doesn't have commands though, just tags..hehe, those <thingys>. And it can do anything from just building a plain 'ole webpage, to actual windows poping up on you.
Yet, what I like about HTML, is most of it's open source, if the person didn't encrypt his work (like I do), then it's free to view to the world.

the internet is built on HTML? Then why did the US government spend so much ****ing money on developing packet switching.

Perhaps you should also distinguish java script from html.

HTML isn't really what I would call 'open source'. Its source is a open as a formatted word document. And you can 'encrypt' your html as much as you want but you will never be able to prevent its original format from being seen, and you certainly dont need to work for the NSA to do this.

HTML, while stated as a "language" is nothing you can really put down on your resume unless you're going in for a web designer position or something similar. Maybe 5-6 years ago when you had to have everything closed correctly for things to display, then it "might" have some semblance of a "language" but now, everything's so lax on the web-page front that you can forget half of them and it won't break on you. Shell programming is nothing like that, neither is batch, etc etc...all of those have an organized structure that actually do something command-wise, even if it's just printing "Hello world!". HTML doesn't do that. It formats for a web page through a myriad of ways. This is not to say that there aren't people out there that really do a good job. I know that for me, a 'web page' means SGML but others do a fantastic job of making a page come alive. This doesn't mean it's a language and I'll never view it as one.

Plain HTML lacks several features not present in what we all like to call "Programming Languages":

1. No loops (MS-DOS Batch has these)
2. No decision making statemens (even MS-DOS Batch has)
3. Lack of Variables,etc.
4. any many many more things....

You get it?? It is not used for "Programming", but "Formatting Text"...

All HTML contains is tags to format text, not accomplish anything else...so its better to term it as a "Markup Language" than "Programming lang..."

On the topic of JavaScript.

Javascript is a real (basic) language....

If not M$ VisualBasic wouldn't be a laguage...
NOR any other basic...

But HTML is just like RichText, a basic standard for text layout.

There are a lot of similarities between JavaScript and C++ aren't there. The IF and FOR and WHILE commands are very similar. There aren't really LOOPS so much in JavaScript. You have FOR but that's not really the same because there are no labels.