C, C++, C#, Java, Python are programming languages. HTML is the abbreviation for Hyper Text Markup Language. Although the word ‘Language’ forms a part of HTML, HTML is a markup language for Internet. What does ‘markup’ mean? Think of markup like makeup! Markup means, using HTML we can mark our text and pictures so that they appear in a certain font, color, position, etc.

HTML, with CSS (Cascading Style Sheets), provides features to layout the various elements on a webpage. Elements of a webpage are text, paragraphs, headings, title, pictures, video, forms, command buttons, etc. There is JavaScript which provides some of the functionality of programming languages. Yet, JavaScript is not treated as a programming language in the same category as C, C++, C#, Java and Python. But HTML is not a programming language. Why? Let us see that.

1. Data Structures: Any programming language, like Java, C, C#, C++, Python, etc., supports mechanisms for storing data in a particular way – these are called data structures. Commonly available data structures are array, stack, queue, linked list. These data structures define how data is stored, where in the memory it is stored, and how it can be accessed.
2. Complex Statements: Programming languages also provide means to group statements into a block that can be thought of as a single complex statement. A simple statement does one task only, like printing a message. A compound statement (also called as a complex statement) is a group of many such simple statements. Can a compound statement contain other compound statements? Yes, it can.
3. Looping: Programming languages also provide various mechanisms of repeating a set of statements over and over again; this is called looping. Common mechanisms of looping are the for loop, do loop, and the while loop. Infact, computers are used to do repetitive tasks and that is where the concept of looping comes in.
4. Condition Check or conditional execution: Programming languages have the mechanism to execute a statement based on some condition being satisfied. So for example, one may carry out division of a number in the numerator by a number in the denominator, provided the denominator is not zero, since division by zero is undefined.
5. Objects and Methods: Object oriented programming languages like C++, C#, Java, and Python provide features to create objects and methods. An object is data on which certain operations can be defined and new objects can be created out of these programmer-created objects. Methods are actions that can act on these objects.

Now, if we compare features of HTML with the above 5 features we observe that none of these is available in HTML. So HTML is not a programming language. A person who knows HTML cannot be said to be a programmer.

But if you have been bitten by the HTML bug, you should surely try to learn these programming languages. There is no specific order in which one learns programming languages and I have elaborated on this point in my blog here.

Categories: Blog, C Programming, C++ Programming, Computer Science, Java, Programming, Python Programming

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