I am creating an article about programming. If I am using C#, for example, I am a C# programmer and I am programming using C#. How about HTML? If HTML is not a programming language, and it is a markup language, what is the correct verb applicable to a person coding in HTML? Is it just coding?
Edit 2:
Wow, apparently you can call HTML/CSS a programming language because HTML5/CCS3 is Turing-Complete by by accident (for first link, check comments).
Main Answer:
"How about HTML?" I take the stance that to be programming, the language has to be Turing Complete. So in my definition you can't be a Regex programmer. The more lean definition is that it needs variables & control statements, as simple as having an 'if' and a 'branch' instruction. So as you point out, pure HTML is not a programming language. But HTML in the real world isn't just html text files!
I would call an HTML user a HTML Techonologist or HTML author but if someone said they were a HTML coder or even a programmer, I wouldn't bat an eye or try to correct them. I don't think many people write plain HTML and the moment one adds Javascript or allows pages to be generated by PHP, python, or anything else it crosses the programming language definition. (edit 2: The moment you add CSS3 it becomes Turing Complete and thus a 'real' programming language)
Edit 1:
I like an answer I found about why 'real programmers' are so defensive over reminding people HTML/CSS is not 'real programming'. The OP's question dealt with what to call HTML authors but this question comes up because 'real programmers' are so firm in making a distinction between their work. I like this quote from Kramli (linked before)
There are times when the difference between programming languages and other languages really does matter. Quite often, however, we can all communicate perfectly effectively when just lump them all in together.
You have three questions...
Q1: I am a C# programmer and I am programming using C#. How about HTML?
A1: I am coding in HTML
Q2: If HTML is not a programming language, and it is a markup
language, what is the correct verb applicable to a person coding in
HTML?
A2: Verb = Coding, But I think you are looking for the term Coder
Q3: Is it just coding?
A3: Yes
HTML is a markup language, hence the name HyperText Markup Language.
You are effectively the modern day equivalent of a typesetter in the print industry.
If you have minimal input in the page creation process then you're probably a Coder, however if you have significant input into page layout, then the job role is normally referred to as being a Web Designer. If you're writing lots of scripts (in say PHP, Python, Ruby, Perl or whatever your least worst option is) to produce the pages in a reasonably professional manner, then you can award yourself the wonderful title of Web Developer :-)
If you devote some thought as to how all these scripts are going to hang together, and how users are going to interact with your site, then you can claim to be an Analyst. :-)
In the Internet, job roles are quite fuzzy; personally I consider myself a mix of all of the above, concentrated more on the Developer/Analyst side as whilst I understand the technical aspects of HTML and CSS, I don't have the appreciation of good design and presentation to fully claim being a Designer in a professional context.
I also suggest you read the answers to the related questions on the right of this page...
As with any language - be it musical, programmatic, mathematical,hyper text or anything in between - as a content creator you are a writer.
Specifically for a mark up language (such as HTML) you are annotating a document with tags that are separate entities from the text between them, and so could be considered an Editor, Author, or Designer because you are generally directing the content of a page.
Differences arise with HTML compared to writing technical documents using, for example, DITA. Where as a DITA document has its architecture and tags, it does not necessarily require a style sheet to be displayed. HTML on the other hand is normally consumed through a web browser so requires CSS transformation to be shown in a readable fashion. For this reason, formatting becomes as important as content and people writing HTML and CSS as a combination are referred to as Web Designers.
If you begin throwing in programming languages such as PHP or JScript you will be referred to as a Web Developer, but developer and designer are often interchangeable between the two options.
what is the correct verb applicable to a person coding in HTML?
coding is a process that involves using programming language. since HTML is not a programming language you can use writing instead of coding. as simple as that.
No, HTML is not a programming language. The "M" stands for "Markup". Generally, a programming language allows you to describe some sort of process of doing something, whereas HTML is a way of adding context and structure to text.
If you're looking to add more alphabet soup to your CV, don't classify them at all. Just put them in a big pile called "Technologies" or whatever you like. Remember, however, that anything you list is fair game for a question.
HTML is so common that I'd expect almost any technology person to already know it (although not stuff like CSS and so on), so you might consider not listing every initialism you've ever come across. I tend to regard CVs listing too many things as suspicious, so I ask more questions to weed out the stuff that shouldn't be listed. :)
However, if your HTML experience includes serious web design stuff including Ajax, JavaScript, and so on, you might talk about those in your "Experience" section.
Related
How did the developers of HTML and CSS define them? I mean which programming language did they use?
Imagine i want to define a new HTML tag or new CSS property, or even a new language.
for example instead of using tags <>, I want to define a language to use brackets [] and new CSS-resembling syntax:
[foo style(bar: .....)]
How they (developers) do this? and which programming language they use, which approach they follow?
p.s.1: I'm not going to develop a new language, it is just a question.
p.s.2: I couldn't find appropriate tags, so please be patient if this question doesn't fit css,html & xml contexts.
Consider this:
You are reading English. You are able to understand punctuation, meaning of the words and then are able to extract what that means.
The same is for HTML and browsers. HTML is itself a "markup language" (not a programming language) like English in our example. Web Browser is like our brain, it understands the syntax(grammar and punctuation) and then extract what that means and show it to us.
So your question was more like "In what language is English written in?".
As for your question to how you want to create something like HTML/CSS, you need to first understand the basics of "Theory of Computation" and "Compiler Construction".
But to answer your question in brief, you need to create a dictionary(which defines meaning of each and every word in your language) and then create a "parser"(like Web Browser) which understands its meaning.
This being a very wide topic, I would like you to search the web for the two topics I mentioned above.
Hope I helped!
Nowadays, we can use HTML5 to make apps, as in android, in firefox os, iPhone, Blackberry and others. But, I heard that HTML is a Markup language, not for programming.
Even with App features, HTML continues to being only a markup language?
Programming languages have certain features, like branching, looping, that sort of thing, that HTML5 lacks. HTML5 defines markup for some interactive features, but the markup is almost entirely static (there's some interaction implied in the definition of select elements and such). A lot of "HTML5" features you hear about aren't HTML5 at all, but rather things you can do with JavaScript (a programming language) in a modestly-capable browser.
HTML5 is increasingly taking over (or has taken over) the role of defining both the structure of web pages and the API to interacting with them from a programming language. That used to be quite separate, in the DOM specs, but a lot of that is now being folded into the HTML5 specification. But again, that's just defining APIs. The actual coding using those APIs requires (in almost all cases) an actual programming language.
Short Answer: No.
Long Answer: No, it isn't. HTML as defined by the standard is just a markup language, exactly as it was in its previous versions.
But what does that mean? It means that it is supposed to structure your data allowing you also to define semantics with the use of markers, but it cannot process or modify your data as you would do using a programming language. Also it has no concept of input or output as is the case in programming languages, where you get an input to analyze and produce an output.
By the way HTML5 is coming out alongside a wider interest for the web and also stronger technologies (such as newer versions of javascript and css) which make new web applications even more powerful and limitless.
Please, read this great resource to learn more about HTML5.
HTML5 is considered a technology.
Yes, there is 5th release of HTML markup language but probably you didn't mean that.
HTML5 is more considered to be a technology including HTML,CSS3 and javascript and most of all their support in tools like browsers. So as a matter of fact it can be considered as something that requires programming.
Programming do not means Turing Complete Language. It's a linguistic problem, programing means to plan something, and this Html does very well.
program (n.)
1630s, "public notice," from Late Latin programma "proclamation, edict," from Greek programma "a written public notice," from stem of prographein "to write publicly," from pro "forth" (see pro-) + graphein "to write" (see -graphy).
The meaning "written or printed list of pieces at a concert, playbill" is recorded by 1805 and retains the original sense. The sense of "broadcasting presentation" is from 1923.
The general sense of "a definite plan or scheme, method of operation or line of procedure prepared or announced beforehand" is recorded from 1837. The computer sense of "series of coded instructions which directs a computer in carrying out a specific task: is from 1945.
The sense of "objects or events suggested by music" is from 1854 (program music is attested by 1877). Spelling programme, established in Britain, is from French in modern use and began to be used early 19c., originally especially in the "playbill" sense.
source
Document editors are nice but they have their limitations.
What is a good alternative to them?
I already know HTML and CSS and while they can do the job, they are ill-suited for printed documents.
I was thinking in learning LaTeX, because many scholars use it. But I wonder if someone would recommend another language such as postscript.
LaTeX is fine. You don't want to write postscript by hand.
I’m using LaTeX almost exclusively nowadays, at least for text documents (everything from CV over letters to manuals).
For quick one-off notes, I’m actually using Markdown (without a renderer. I just think that Markdown preserves document structure quite nicely even when used in text-only mode).
For presentations and spreadsheets, I use appropriate applications, though. In particular, I don’t think LaTeX is that well-suited to do the former (depending on your style of presentations, obviously. Mine have next to no text though …).
I finally got a chance to write an entire paper in LaTeX for my final semester of College and found it to be easier than I thought it would be. A couple of the nice things I found about it were
A fairly lightweight syntax for most things (tables being the only real offender, but no one can get text tables right).
An extremely wide array of syntax for doing anything from automatically marking up a chemical formula to writing inline lists.
Beautiful output automatically.
Extremely easy to write modular documents where I might store a chapter in a file and then simply \include{} it in another. One particularly nice use I found for this was to include code that I had written in the document simply by referencing the files.
Wonderful support for footnotes and bibliographic references.
Libraries for just about anything you can imagine.
The major drawbacks are, IMHO:
A lack of any real direction or life in the language. It feels dead, and not because it's done.
A frustrating build process, although there are tools to help with that, from a simple bash script to a full fledged make file.
If you're interested in learning LaTeX, I would recommend starting out by reading the Not So Short Introduction to LaTeX 2e PDF.
However, I decided against using LaTeX for most things that I write these days specifically because it feels dead and has a frustrating build process. I instead switched over to MultiMarkdown, as it is well supported and can be transformed into a large array of other formats, including LaTeX which can then be hand massaged if you really need to in order to get it the format expected by some publication. If you haven't played with MultiMarkdown or Markdown before, then I highly recommend checking them out. The syntax is extremely lightweight and natural, even compared to LaTeX. I find that except for some of the higher level typographical constructs, MultiMarkdown supports everything I need on a regular basis.
My 2 cents.
It depends on what you want to do. If you are planning to write a formal document, maybe for printing too, just go for LaTex.
Not difficolt as it may appear at the very beginning but professional and fulfilling.
If Web is your goal, go for HTML / CSS.
OpenOffice or Word would do the trick in most cases; do not underestimate them, if you are going to use them (example for job) take time to learn them.
To expand on zzzzBov's commmment, LaTeX is SUPPOSED to allow the writer to concentrate on the content and allow the compiler/documentclass to handle formatting (and that usually is true). If you use HTML/CSS to format you will probably be spending more time (rather than less) doing formatting. Imagine that the LaTeX documentclass is the CSS, only it is already written for you, and your LaTeX source is the content, only the tags are more functional (such as italics or equations) than for patching between the HTML and the CSS (<div ...>). I recommend the LaTeX wikibook as an easy way to start, and the short-math-guide, it if you need mathematics. Enjoy!
I was reading O'Reilly's Learning XML Book and read the following
HTML was in some ways a step backward.
To achieve the simplicity necessary to
be truly useful, some principles of
generic coding had to be sacrificed.
... To return to the ideals of
generic coding, some people tried to
adapt SGML for the web ... This proved
too difficult.
This reminded me of a StackOverflow Podcast where they discussed the poorly formed HTML that works on browsers.
My question is, would the Internet still be as successful if the standards were as strict as developers would want them to be now?
Lack of standard enforcement didn't hurt the adoption of the web in the slightest. If anything, it helped it. The web was originally designed for scientists (who generally have little patience for programming) to post research results. So liberal parsers allowed them to not care about the markup - good enough was good enough.
If it hadn't been successful with scientists, it never would have migrated to the rest of academia, nor from there to the wider world, and it would still today be an academic exercise.
But now that it's out in the wider world, should we clamp down? I see no incentive for anyone to do so. Browser makers want market share, and they don't get it by being pissy about which pages they display properly. Content sites want to reach people, and they don't do that by only appearing correctly in Opera. The developer lobby, such as it is, is not enough.
Besides, one of the reasons front-end developers can charge a lot of money (vs. visual designers) is because they know the ins and outs of the various browsers. If there's only one right way, then it can be done automatically, and there's no longer a need for those folks - well, not at programmer salaries, anyway.
Most of the ambiguity and inconsistency on the web today isn't from things like unclosed tags - it's from CSS semantics being inconsistent from one browser to the next. Even if all web pages were miraculously well-formed XML, it wouldn't help much.
The fact that html simply "marks up" text and is not a language with operators, loops, functions and other common programming language elements is what allows it to be loosely interpreted.
One could correlate this loose interpretation as making the markup language more accessible and easily used thus allowing more "uneducated" people access to the language.
My personal opinion is that this has little to do with the success of the Internet. Instead, it's the ability to communicate and share information that make the internet "successful."
It hurt the Internet big time.
I recall listening to a podcast interview with someone who worked on the HTML 2.0 spec and IIRC there was a big debate at the time surrounding the strictness of parsers adhering to the standard.
The winners of the argument used the "a well implemented system should be liberal in what it accepts and strict in what it outputs" approach which was popular at the time.
AFAICT many people now regard this approach as overly simplistic - it sounds good in principle, but actually rarely works in practice.
IMO, even if HTML was super strict from the outset, it would still have been simple enough for most people to grasp. Uptake might have been marginally slower at the outset, but a huge amount of time/money (billions of dollars) would have been saved in the medium-long term.
There is a principle that describes how HTML and web browsers are able to work and interoperate with any success at all:
Be liberal in what you accept, and conservative in what you output.
There needs to be some latitude between what is "correct" and "acceptable" HTML. Because HTML was designed to be "human +rw", we shouldn't be surprised that there are so many flavours of tag soup. Flexibility is HTML's strength wherever humans need to be involved.
However, that flexibility adds processing overhead which can be hard to justify when you need to create something for machine consumption. This is the reason for XHTML and XML: it takes away some of that flexibility in exchange for predictable input.
If HTML had been more strict, something easier would have generated the needed network effect for the internet to become mainstream.
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I guess the question is self-explanatory, but I'm wondering whether HTML qualifies as a programming language (obviously the "L" stands for language).
The reason for asking is more pragmatic—I'm putting together a resume and don't want to look like a fool for listing things like HTML and XML under languages, but can't figure out how to classify them.
No, HTML is not a programming language. The "M" stands for "Markup". Generally, a programming language allows you to describe some sort of process of doing something, whereas HTML is a way of adding context and structure to text.
If you're looking to add more alphabet soup to your CV, don't classify them at all. Just put them in a big pile called "Technologies" or whatever you like. Remember, however, that anything you list is fair game for a question.
HTML is so common that I'd expect almost any technology person to already know it (although not stuff like CSS and so on), so you might consider not listing every initialism you've ever come across. I tend to regard CVs listing too many things as suspicious, so I ask more questions to weed out the stuff that shouldn't be listed. :)
However, if your HTML experience includes serious web design stuff including Ajax, JavaScript, and so on, you might talk about those in your "Experience" section.
YES, a declarative programming language.
You really want to list the most important things you know that are relative to the job you're applying for on your resume. If you list ASP.NET but don't list HTML, even though it's somewhat obvious, there are a lot of managers and/or HR types that will assume you don't know HTML since it's not listed. I've had it happen to me before.
Update - Some say no it isn't a programming language, and you may not agree with me on this, but regardless on a resume it IS a programming language. You get HR types looking at your resume before the hiring manager even sees it. If the manager says you need to know HTML, and it's not listed in the 'programming languages' section then the HR person may disregard you resume thinking you don't know it because it's not listed.
Update 6-8-2012: Any instruction that tells the computer to do something is a programming language. So even after all these years, I still stand by my answer. HTML is a programming language. Something that isn't a programming language would be XML.
No, the clue is in the M - it's a Markup Language.
On some level Chris Pietschmann is correct. SQL isn't Turing complete (at least without stored procedures) yet people will list that as a language, TeX is Turing complete but most people regard it as a markup language.
Having said that: if you are just applying for jobs, not arguing formal logic, I would just list them all as technologies. Things like .NET aren't languages but would probably be listed as well.
The 'M' stands for a 'Markup'. It's a 'Markup Language' not a programming language. Some people will disagree with this, but my opinion is that if it lacks logical constructs (conditional branching, iteration, etc) its not really a programming language.
As for the resume, I would suggest putting HTML and XML under a section like 'Technologies'. I usually have a section like this where I list things like version control software, OS's I've developed for, build systems, etc.
No, HTML is a not a programming language. It is called "markup" for that reason.
If you're going to say that HTML is a programming language, then you might as well include things such as word documents, as they too are based on ML, or 'Markup Language'.
Simply put--HTML defines content!
I think not exactly a programming language, but exactly what its name says: a markup language.
We cannot program using just pure, HTML. But just annotate how to present content.
But if you consider programming the act of tell the computer how to present contents, it is a programming language.
In the advanced programming languages class I took in college, we had what I think is a pretty good definition of "programming language": a programming language is any (formal) language capable of expressing all computable functions, which the Church-Turing thesis implies is the set of all Turing-computable functions.
By that definition, no, HTML is not a programming language, even a declarative one. It is, as others have explained, a markup language.
But the people reviewing your resume may very well not care about such a formal distinction. I'd follow the good advice given by others and list it under a "Technologies" type of section.
I think that it definitely has its place on a resume. Knowledge of HTML is valuable, and there really is a lot to know, what with cross-browser compatibility issues and standards which should be followed.
I wouldn't list HTML under "programming languages" alongside C# or something, but it's worth noting your experience.
No - there's a big prejudice in IT against web design; but in this case the "real" programmers are on pretty firm ground.
If you've done a lot of web design work you've probably done some JavaScript, so you can put that down under 'programming languages'; if you want to list HTML as well, then I agree with the answer that suggests "Technologies".
But unless you're targeting agents who're trying to tick boxes rather than find you a good job, a bare list of things you've used doesn't really look all that good. You're better off listing the projects you've worked on and detailing the technologies you used on each; that demonstrates that you've got real experience of using them rather than just that you know some buzzwords.
I get around this problem by not having a "programming languages" section on my resume. Instead I label it simply as "languages", and I stick HTML and CSS at the end. I'd rather make life easier for the reviewer so that they can see whether mine checks-off all their requirements.
Only fools would disregard an applicant because he or she listed HTML under "languages" instead of some other label, especially since there is no industry standard. And who wants to work for fools?
Well, L is for language, but it doesn't imply programming language. After all, English or French are (natural) languages too! ;-)
As said above, put them under a subsidiary section, Technology seems to be a good term.
(Looking at my own resume, not updated in a while) I have made a section just called "Languages", so I can't get wrong... :-D
I have put "(X)HTML and CSS, XML/DTD/Schema and SVG" at the end of the section, clearly separated.
In French, I have a section "Langages" (programming and markup) and another "Langues" (French/English). In the English version, I titled both at "Languages", which is clumsy now that I think of it, although context clarify this. I should find a better formulation.
HTML is in no way a programming language.
Programming languages deals with ''proccessing functions'', etc. HTML just deals with the visual interface of a web page, where the actual programming handles the proccessing. PHP for example.
If anyone really knows programming, I really can't see how people can mistake HTML for an actual programming language.
In recruitment terms, having been on both sides of the fence, definitely put HTML under 'programming languages', or perhaps more safely under 'technologies'
Yes, we all know that it is a Markup Language and not a Programming Language. but a) Recruitment Agencies don't know and don't care, and b) employers don't know and don't care. Really.
And pointing out their ignorance will only serve you ill. And the techies who eventually see your CV will be grateful for a candidate who has heard of HTML, and won't worry about the taxonomy.
Honestly, it isn't an issue.
List it under technologies or something. I'd just leave it off if I were you as it's pretty much expected that you know HTML and XML at this point.