Is HTML actually a coding language???

[DomTech05]

Debate as to weather HTML is an actual coding language, or just a fraudster....

[Streetguru]

1 minute ago, DomTech05 said:

Debate as to weather HTML is an actual coding language, or just a fraudster....

Of course it is?

[DomTech05]

There's a lot of people who don't agree though....

[Suika]

1 minute ago, DomTech05 said:

There's a lot of people who don't agree though....

Yea, there are lots of loony people in this world. Sometimes, it's best to ignore them and operate more objectively.

[DomTech05]

Just now, Suika said:

Yea, there are lots of loony people in this world. Sometimes, it's best to ignore them and operate more objectively.

Yeah, the people who don't think HTML is a coding language are almost as bad as those who think global warming isn't a thing (yes you, Donald Trump!!!)

[Glenwing]

It's a markup language, that's what the "ML" stands for

[TheKDub]

10 minutes ago, DomTech05 said:

Debate as to weather HTML is an actual coding language, or just a fraudster....

No.

 

HTML = Hypertext Markup Language. It's a markup language, not a "coding language"

 

A markup language is a language that annotates text so that the computer can manipulate that text. Most markup languages are human readable because the annotations are written in a way to distinguish them from the text itself. https://www.lifewire.com/what-are-markup-languages-3468655

 

HTML (and other markup languages) are just a way of adding structure and context to text.

 

[minibois]

Javascript or PHP can introduce coding into a .html file, but HTML itself is a markup language, not programming/coding language.

[Nettly_]

HTML is not a programming language. Like Markdown, BBCode, SGML, and so many more it is what is known as a Markup language. The difference between programming languages and markup languages is that markup languages for visual ONLY with no functionality outside of design. But HTML is the most advanced Markup language with programming languages (Java and JavaScript) being designed to make it functional, which is what creates the web as we know it (with things like forums having back ends written in JavaScript and sometimes Python). However this cannot be argued as "HTML is a programming languages because it can be functional because of other languages" as I have seen semi-commonplace.

TL;DR
No it is not and never can be

[Dat Guy]

HTML is as much as a "coding language" as RTF.

[Dat Guy]

29 minutes ago, SafyreLyons-5LT said:

HTML is the most advanced Markup language with programming languages (Java and JavaScript) being designed to make it functional

Java has no relation to HTML.

 

Postscript is the most advanced Markup language - possibly on par with TeX. (I'd need to check that one day.)

[Nettly_]

4 minutes ago, Dat Guy said:

Java has no relation to HTML.

 

Postscript is the most advanced Markup language - possibly on par with TeX. (I'd need to check that one day.)

Java came to mind when it should not have, my bad

Also I never heard of Postscript

[Dat Guy]

PostScript:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PostScript

 

Today, most people only use that to generate PDFs.

[Franck]

2 hours ago, SafyreLyons-5LT said:

Also I never heard of Postscript

When programming in the late 80's early 90's it was very popular. Now as @Dat Guy said the only place that it's probably used anymore is for PDF generator.

Even that niche is being replace as the PDF full specs have been available on Adobe website for couple years so you can implement your own.

Don't get me wrong it is a great scripting and a pillar in the realm of what printing is nowaday. Otherwise i'd still be stuck with an ASCII printer, an IBM ProPrinter I Dot matrix 11 needles.

[DevBlox]

A programming language that isn't Turing Complete would be completely useless, therefore things like that are not really programming languages.

 

It's a markup language, ir represents what you see in your browser, not a programming language.

[Dat Guy]

45 minutes ago, DevBlox said:

A programming language that isn't Turing Complete would be completely useless

SQL is a programming language to some extent - and it is not Turing-complete.

[JacobFW]

One issue here is that the very definition of programming language is a bit lax in this regard

From Wikitionary, (which has the best defintion I've seen so far)

Quote

Code of reserved words and symbols used in computer programs, which give instructions to the computer on how to accomplish certain computing tasks.

-Wiktionary

Which technically, HTML does meet.

 

However, I will agree that I don't believe HTML is what we usually think of as a programming language.  I think what people usually think of is a General Purpose Programming Language:

Quote

a programming language designed to be used for writing software in the widest variety of application domains... a general-purpose programming language has this status because it does not include language constructs designed to be used within a specific application domain.

-Wikipedia

In other words, it's inherently designed to be flexible; to give you tools that can used to solve a wide variety of problems.  HTML is in many regards more akin to blueprints than to a general purpose programming language.  In terms of functional capabilities, HTML is very limited:

• That output of it's instructions is generally limited to just displaying a static page
• It's has very limited action/response capabilities (generally limited to form submission, hyper links, downloads, etc).
• It usually depends on other languages to support more advanced functionality (i.e. Javascript at the very least for clientside programming, with some possible server side language like PHP for even more advanced functionality).

 

To be clear, I'm not saying HTML is useless; far from it.  It is designed to solve legitimate problems, but that it also very much the crux of the issue here, in that it's too heavily focused to be really very useful for anything outside of what it is designed for.

 

So in short, I think the problem here is simply one of definition.  We're still using terms with definitions that they don't really match anymore, likely because language may not always keep paced with the changes in technology & culture.

 

 

 

[Dat Guy]

2 minutes ago, JacobFW said:

Which technically, HTML does meet.

No, because HTML does not give instructions.

[Sauron]

It depends on your definition, but the best answer in any case is: who cares? What a language is is far less important than what it allows you to do.

2 hours ago, DevBlox said:

A programming language that isn't Turing Complete would be completely useless

That's absolutely not true. Just because you can't do literally anything with it that doesn't mean it can't do the thing you need. In some fields it's a lot more important to have sound guarantees than to have unlimited flexibility.

[JacobFW]

10 minutes ago, Dat Guy said:

No, because HTML does not give instructions.

 

<title>MainPage</title>

Put 'MainPage' at the top of the browser when someone view this page.

 

<a href="https://www.google.com">Go to Google</a>

Show the words 'Go to Google' and if someone clicks on them, then load the google webpage.

 

To be clear man, I'm not trying to attack you on this.  It may not have been originally designed that way, but by usage HTML has become a very static, but still interpreted language.  I know that Markup languages are considered very distinct from other languages, but my point is that those are still instructions given to the browser. 

 

And again, the entire point of my argument is that when people use the term programming language, what they're actually referring to is a general purpose programming language.  So regardless of whether or not we agree about the first issue, it sounds like we can both agree that HTML absolutely does not meet the definition of a general purpose language.

 

Normally I wouldn't try to argue that, but what I'm trying to point out is there has become a large difference between the traditional definitions/concepts of these words and topics, versus the way we think of and use these terms today.  A forum isn't probably the best place for these arguments, and I'm probably not the best person to argue them, but I do think at the very least these are topics that we should think about, in order to make sure we can communicate clearly.  I mean really, if us group of nerds are disagreeing about these things, what hope do all the muggles have. 

 

[Franck]

32 minutes ago, JacobFW said:

 

<title>MainPage</title>

Put 'MainPage' at the top of the browser when someone view this page.

 

<a href="https://www.google.com">Go to Google</a>

Show the words 'Go to Google' and if someone clicks on them, then load the google webpage.

 

To be clear man, I'm not trying to attack you on this.  It may not have been originally designed that way, but by usage HTML has become a very static, but still interpreted language.  I know that Markup languages are considered very distinct from other languages, but my point is that those are still instructions given to the browser. 

 

And again, the entire point of my argument is that when people use the term programming language, what they're actually referring to is a general purpose programming language.  So regardless of whether or not we agree about the first issue, it sounds like we can both agree that HTML absolutely does not meet the definition of a general purpose language.

 

Normally I wouldn't try to argue that, but what I'm trying to point out is there has become a large difference between the traditional definitions/concepts of these words and topics, versus the way we think of and use these terms today.  A forum isn't probably the best place for these arguments, and I'm probably not the best person to argue them, but I do think at the very least these are topics that we should think about, in order to make sure we can communicate clearly.  I mean really, if us group of nerds are disagreeing about these things, what hope do all the muggles have. 

 

To that point we would have to consider a .txt file to be a programming language. I tell the program to write some letter at specific position. The viewer (notepad for example) the equivalent of the browser for HTML will display however he wants the content.

 

I think it's up to interpretation but i too don't classify HTML as a programming language. It's as static as a TXT, RTF or even and image. Another example is a STEP file You write down points, triangles and a viewere makes out what you told him in the file.

[C2dan88]

HTML is a markup language not a programming language. The HTML is parsed by your web browser for how to display text on a web page.  HTML has similar properties to XML.

 

A programming language to me is something that consists of variables, functions, data types, logic operators, if/else, for/while loops etc. HTML can do none of this.

[JacobFW]

17 minutes ago, Franck said:

To that point we would have to consider a .txt file to be a programming language. I tell the program to write some letter at specific position. The viewer (notepad for example) the equivalent of the browser for HTML will display however he wants the content.

 

I think it's up to interpretation but i too don't classify HTML as a programming language. It's as static as a TXT, RTF or even and image. Another example is a STEP file You write down points, triangles and a viewere makes out what you told him in the file.

Dammit, I don't want to keep the debate going when I feel like we're in agreement, but I do think think I have an argument against the text file point.

 

I would lump text files into the same boat as .doc & .odt files, and they don't qualify for two reasons:

• there's no transformation.  What you write does not get interpreted to mean something else.  Technically new lines and tabs might qualify in the way you mentioned, but even then there's still a 1 to 1 change on screen.
• The program is in many ways meant to hide the fact that it exists.   For instance with a word document, you're letting the editor handle the nitty gritty details of how it's being saved in the file.  You're able to edit the document in the file way that you want it to appear.  

 

In short, the difference is you're using a WYSIWYG's, not writing a programming language.

 

Again though, I think the problem here is poor definitions.

Programming Language as it's most commonly used today actually means General Purpose Programming Language

 

[wasab]

Is latex a mark up language?

[wasab]

3 hours ago, JacobFW said:

 

<title>MainPage</title>

Put 'MainPage' at the top of the browser when someone view this page.

 

<a href="https://www.google.com">Go to Google</a>

Show the words 'Go to Google' and if someone clicks on them, then load the google webpage.

 

To be clear man, I'm not trying to attack you on this.  It may not have been originally designed that way, but by usage HTML has become a very static, but still interpreted language.  I know that Markup languages are considered very distinct from other languages, but my point is that those are still instructions given to the browser. 

 

And again, the entire point of my argument is that when people use the term programming language, what they're actually referring to is a general purpose programming language.  So regardless of whether or not we agree about the first issue, it sounds like we can both agree that HTML absolutely does not meet the definition of a general purpose language.

 

Normally I wouldn't try to argue that, but what I'm trying to point out is there has become a large difference between the traditional definitions/concepts of these words and topics, versus the way we think of and use these terms today.  A forum isn't probably the best place for these arguments, and I'm probably not the best person to argue them, but I do think at the very least these are topics that we should think about, in order to make sure we can communicate clearly.  I mean really, if us group of nerds are disagreeing about these things, what hope do all the muggles have. 

 

Let me just ask you this.... Can html do calculation like adding two numbers together? Any "programming language" that does not allow you to crunch number is no programing langauge at all.