Basic HTML: What is HTML?

Hypertext was described by Daniel Gross in a 1988 Information Today article as...

"...Information is stored in small, easily manipulated components which can then be interrelated. A specially-designed user interface lets you navigate through these pieces of information in much the same way you might jump from stone to stone to cross a stream. The stones are data, and the jumps are links. The stones may have nothing in common, but you are free to jump between them as you please..."

Hypertext was also been described later as follows...

"Hypertext is the presentation of information as a linked network of nodes which readers are free to navigate in a non-linear fashion. It allows for multiple authors, a blurring of the author and reader functions, extended works with diffuse boundaries, and multiple reading paths."

A few more points...

HTML stands for Hypertext Markup Language.
HTML is the hypertext format used to publish information on the internet.
HTML is more similar to word processor formatting commands than a programming language.
HTML commands are commonly called "tags"
HTML tags work with your web browser to format, display and establish connections between documents.
HTML, unlike many other hypertext products, does not need to be compiled, It's interpreted by the browser.

There are, however, a number of other internet technologies that work with HTML like Java, JavaScript, ActiveX, VBScript, etc., which are programming languages, but those are topics for future classes. To better understand those, we need to be competent with the basics!