Lecture 6 - Applications #3.1: HTML and HTTP Basics

New Developments and Directions For HTML

The current "official" version of HTML is 4.01, now re-specified as XHTML 1.0 using XML (see later). (see http://www.w3.org/Markup/ for details). It's now a very large and complicated language, and it's clear that ordinary punters will have difficulty in using all of it!
HTML 4.0 introduced the idea of Cascading Style Sheets which specify in detail how the author would prefer the markup tags to be interpreted. These are a good thing, but not (yet) widely used.
The eXtensible Markup Language (XML) provides a new basis for developing new markup languages in the Web (of which XHTML is just one), and should allow the Web to evolve into a much richer environment. We examine XML later.

The WWW Consortium has a great 10 minute introduction to HTML. It's very similar to the content of today's lecture. For an excellent HTML tutorial, have a look at the first few lectures for the La Trobe University, Bendigo subject Web Development. The NCSA people also have their NCSA (at UIUC) Beginner's Guide to HTML. Another excellent resource is the Web Design Group.