Introducing HTML

The Importance of HTML

HTML why it's so critical to web design. You need to learn at least the three core languages of HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. Those three languages form the backbone of all websites and web content, and they're critical skills for any web designer to learn. Although CSS controls how a page looks, and JavaScript controls how it behaves, HTML provides the essential structure for web pages. Take away the CSS, and you simply have an unstyled page. Take away the JavaScript, and certain behaviors may cease to function. Take away the HTML however, and you're left with nothing at all.

Basic HTML Symtax

HTML can do all of this because it's a markup language. That means that HTML is used to markup content in order to explain what that content is and how it relates to other content on the page. It does this through the use of tags, which are used to identify specific types of content. The web changes fast, and for the most part, HTML is changing right along with it. One of the most challenging aspects of web design is staying current with the languages and standards that you're going to be using. Although the syntax of HTML is relatively simple to learn, there's, still a lot of elements, attributes and other concepts that you're going to need to learn and keep track of.

Choosing A Code Editor

Authoring HTML requires little more than a text editor. HTML documents are really nothing more than a text file with a .htm or .html extension, so really, almost any text editing tool will suffice. However, authoring websites can be a tedious process, and you're usually going to be writing multiple languages, like HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. So, writing all of that by hand can be really time consuming. A good HTML editor can help speed up the process and catch syntax errors that you might miss.

Example Code

        <!DOCTYPE html>
        	<p lang="en">
                    HTML uses tags to identify page content.
                    <em>This text, for example, is a <strong>paragraph </strong></em> 
                </p>
        </html>