A web page is a text file with an extension of .htm or .html. The plain ascii text is read by a program on your machine called a browser (IE, Mozilla, Opera, FireFox, etc). It reads through the “source code” in the file from top to bottom, reading the elements (pairs of HTML tags) and commands, which tell the browser what to show you and how to arrange it. Sometimes the HTML tags contain other types of scripting language code such as JavaScript or Coldfusion.

HTML has been around since 1990. The original specification proved to have a number of flaws allowing pages to display or not display with great variety, depending on the version of browser an individual was using. In 1999, the W3C implemented XHTML, the ‘new & improved HTML’. The revision provides the capability for eXtending the language and requires that all code be complete and syntactically correct.

A web page consists of 3 parts

The first line of every page must contain a DOCTYPE declaration which tells the browser what to expect to encounter on this page in terms of markup and syntax.

The Head tells the browser stuff about the page, how to display elements and where to find more info.

• It must contain at least 1 pair of title tags
• the title should relate to the page content
• the title appears in the title bar of your browser

The Body tells the browser what to display and how to do it.

• contains the structured contents of the page, what we see when we browse.
• The Head and Body elements are contained in the HTML element