Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) and Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) are languages used for web development. HTML builds the website's structure and CSS provides the visual layout.
HTML was written by Tim Berners-Lee in 1993. It is the standard language for documents for web browsers. HTML is actually a markup language, which means that it uses tags to define elements and is human-readable. It is one of the most popular markup languages.
CSS was proposed by Hakon Wium Lie in 1994 while working with Tim Berners-Lee at CerN. CSS is a style sheet language used for describing the presentation of a document written in a markup language such as HTML. It is designed to separate presentation and content, including layout, colors, and fonts, which can improve content accessibility.
HTML is a combination of Hypertext and Markup language. Hypertext defines the link between the web pages. Markup language is used to define the text document within tags, which defines the structure of web pages. HTML is used to annotate text so that a machine can understand it and manipulate text accordingly. The language uses tags to define what manipulation has to be done on the text. There are predefined tags and elements which tell the browser how to properly display the content. The advantages of HTML is that it is supported by all browsers and can be integrated with other languages. However, it can only create static web pages, so for dynamic web pages you’ll need JavaScript or other languages.
CSS is one of the core languages of the open web and is standardized across web browsers according to the W3C specification. CSS, along with HTML and JavaScript, are the three cornerstones of the open web — HTML defines the website structure, CSS gives it look and feel, JavaScript brings interactivity and animations. With CSS, you can control the style of the website, such as text color, font, spacing, layout, images, and variations for different screen sizes.
HTML is a simple markup language and is easy to implement. It is used to create websites, so if you are interested in web development, this is a good place to start. As such, learning HTML will help in developing fundamentals about web programming. Similarly, CSS is a cornerstone of web design, so having a knowledge of HTML and CSS is essential for anyone who wants to go into web development or are interested in making your own website for a business or for a project.