You may have noticed most Web page URL’s end with either the three letters “htm” or the four letters “html.” From what we know of URL’s, we know this must have something to do with the name of the file being viewed. So what does it mean?

H.T.M.L. = Hyper Text Markup Language

We've already briefly discussed "Hyper Text," but what is a "Markup Language?"

A “Markup Language” is a language made up of commands that imply the structure of a file’s appearance, but not the actual appearance itself. What this means, essentially, is that the browser reads the Markup Language file to get an idea of how to lay out the page, and then does the actual layout itself.

As you may notice if you look at the code for a Web page, HTML files are usually not very large, which is both the strength and weakness of the Web: the code (theoretically, at least) downloads quickly, but the actual appearance of a page is up to the interpretation of the browser that is viewing the document.

Let's take a look at a Web page's code right now.

Click the right button on your mouse (or, if you're using a Macintosh, hold down the CTRL key and click the mouse button) anywhere on this page. A menu should open up. One of the options should say either "View Source" or "View Frame Source." Select that option and click once o it. The window that will pop up is the actual HTML code for this page. Close the window when you're done looking.

It may look a little daunting at first, but we'll be going over how to understand what this code actually does and how to write it yourself for the remainder of this course. Up next, we're going to build our very first Web page!