HTML Basics

Is HTML a programming language?

  • Yes!
  • It has a formal grammar and syntax
  • You instruct the browser to do something
  • a programming language that does one thing well: structure content
  • It doesn't need to be turing complete to be considered a programming language
  • In fact, the latter is the best feature of it, not a flaw

Minimal HTML Example

<!DOCTYPE html>
<title>Hello World</title>
Hello World!

This is already a valid HTML document. You don't even need to define a head or a body. You can even omit the top-most <html> tag. The only required tag is the <title> element.

Adding more Structure

To be fair, you will want to have a little more structure to your document, like metadata for search engines, and maybe a top-level heading (h1) and a paragraph (p).

<!DOCTYPE html>
<title>Hello World</title>
<meta name="description" content="This is a description">
<!-- who wrote this content ? -->
<meta name="author" content="Lea Rosema">

<!-- add a short description which will be shown under search results -->
<meta name="description" content="A minisite about HTML and accessibility fundamentals.">

<h1>Hello World</h1>
<p>Welcome to my website!</p>

Further Resources