Computer Programming and Online Application Development:
Markup Languages:
Markup languages are agreed upon sets of codes used to express and interpret
style, formatting, color, font, size, and other design and layout settings in web pages,
(and other computer based design tasks).
The primary markup language used in web development is HTML, (hyper text markup language).
HTML is an established and still evolving language which includes "tags" for setting
parameters for fonts, forms, frames, graphics, links, tables, structure and style.
Before going into detail about HTML tags, we should mention that HTML is not the only
markup language used on the web, and certainly not the only markup language used
in computer programming.
The great-grand-daddy of HTML, SGML, (Standard Generalized Markup Language),
was created by and for the printing and publishing industry.
It had tags for specifying fonts, layout and design elements, but did not contain any of the
functional tags such as links, sound or video embedding, or other HTTP (hyper text transfer protocol)
online syntax.
An early attenpt on online use of a subset of SGML, NAPLPS, (North American Presentation Level Protocol Syntax), failed
due to its reliance on proprietary software and license agreements.
When Tim Berners-Lee released his vision of a "world wide web" and the accompanying HTML and HTTP language and
transmission protocols, it was a gift to the world that soon brought about the release of millions of self-published
web pages and web sites, and changed the concept of interactive online communication.
Along with SGML, NAPLPS, and HTML, there are several other markup languages and add-ons which can be used
for online application development. A few of the more popular flavors are XML, PhP and JavaScript.
While many of the early mark-up languages dealt entirely with the presentation level of the data, many others
deal with "metadata", additional codes added to a document or to an index which in-turn relates back to the
data (files). This is very much like a library card catalog systems.
Most have grown out of XML, (eXtensible Markup Language), and follow an xml schema specific
to a particular type of data, for examples RDF / RSS for news syndication, MathML for mathematic notation,
and many others.
Protocols, scripting and markup language definitions:
ASCII - American Standard Code for Information Interchange
ANSI - American National Standards Institute
SGML - Standard Generalized Markup Language
HTML - Hyper Text Markup Language
NAPLPS - North American Presentation-Level Protocol Syntax
XML - eXtensible Markup Language
RSS - Rich Site Summary
PhP - PHP Hypertext Preprocessor
JAVASCRIPT - object-oriented, cross-platform programming language developed by Sun Microsystems
(Thanks to AcronymFinder.com for help with the definitions above).
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