A bit of History
Does anybody read the history part anyway??? That's was a preoccupation for our team. We wandering if someone care about the history of HTML. We finally and up with: Your suppose to!!! Seriously, we know that history part are sometime boring but we think its important to have a little background before starting. We decided to share this information in two formats: the Ok ok do me a short resumé and the Bring it on!. Have fun!!!
The Ok ok do me a short resumé part
HTML was designed in 1992 by Tim Berners-Lee and Robert Caillau at CERN. HTML is an instance of SGML, Standard Generalized Markup Language. Originally, HTML specified strictly the logical structure, not the physical layout.
Pressure from users (mainly industry), forced subsequent version to allow increasingly fine-grained control of the appearance:
- 1992: HTML is first defined
- 1993: HTML+ (some physical layout, fill-out forms, tables, math)
- 1994: HTML 2.0 (standard for core features) AND HTML 3.0 (an extension of HTML+ submitted as a draft standard)
- 1995: Netscape-specific non-standard HTML appears
- 1996: Competing Netscape and Explorer versions of HTML HTML 3.2 (standard based on current practices)
- 1997: HTML 4.0 (separates structure and presentation with style sheets)
- 1999: HTML 4.01 (slight modifications only)
- 2000: XHTML 1.0 (XML version of HTML 4.01)
The Bring it on part
Origins
In 1980, physicist Tim Berners-Lee, who was an independent contractor at CERN, proposed and prototyped ENQUIRE, a hypertext system for CERN researchers to use to share documents. In 1989, Berners-Lee and CERN data systems engineer Robert Cailliau each submitted separate proposals for an Internet-based hypertext system providing similar functionality. The following year, they collaborated on a joint proposal, the WorldWideWeb (W3) project, which was accepted by CERN.
First specifications
The first publicly available description of HTML was a document called HTML Tags, first mentioned on the Internet by Berners-Lee in late 1991. It describes 22 elements comprising the initial, relatively simple design of HTML. Thirteen of these elements still exist in HTML 4.
Berners-Lee considered HTML to be, at the time, an application of SGML, but it was not formally defined as such until the mid-1993 publication, by the IETF, of the first proposal for an HTML specification: Berners-Lee and Dan Connolly's "Hypertext Markup Language (HTML)" Internet-Draft, which included an SGML Document Type Definition to define the grammar.The draft expired after six months, but was notable for its acknowledgment of the NCSA Mosaic browser's custom tag for embedding in-line images, reflecting the IETF's philosophy of basing standards on successful prototypes.Similarly, Dave Raggett's competing Internet-Draft, "HTML+ (Hypertext Markup Format)", from late 1993, suggested standardizing already-implemented features like tables and fill-out forms.
After the HTML and HTML+ drafts expired in early 1994, the IETF created an HTML Working Group, which in 1995 completed "HTML 2.0", the first HTML specification intended to be treated as a standard against which future implementations should be based. Published as Request for Comments 1866, HTML 2.0 included ideas from the HTML and HTML+ drafts. There was no "HTML 1.0"; the 2.0 designation was intended to distinguish the new edition from previous drafts.
Further development under the auspices of the IETF was stalled by competing interests. Since 1996, the HTML specifications have been maintained, with input from commercial software vendors, by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). However, in 2000, HTML also became an international standard (ISO/IEC 15445:2000). The last HTML specification published by the W3C is the HTML 4.01 Recommendation, published in late 1999. Its issues and errors were last acknowledged by errata published in 2001./