World-Wide Markup Language

• “The HyperText Markup Language is an SGML format.” [Tim Berners-Lee, 1991, “About HTML”]

• Standard, Open Document Formats since the 1960s (GCA’s GenCode, IBM’s GML)

• SGML (ISO 8879:1986) standardized DTDs, doc validity proofs, complex structuring, extensions

• 1990: Berners-Lee picked tags from a sample SGML DTD and added “killer feature”: links

• World-Wide HTML tagset embodies 80/20 rule

• XML allows Community-Wide Markup Languages,combining SGML’s power with HTML’s simplicity

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