You might have noticed that many Internet sites include the letters HTTP in
the site address that appears in the address line of your web browser. HTTP
(another OSI Layer 7 protocol) defines the rules for transferring information,
files, and multimedia on web pages. Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) is
the language used within HTTP. HTML is actually a fairly simple, easy-tolearn
computer language that embeds symbols into a text file to specify visual
or functional characteristics such as font size, page boundaries, and application
usages (such as launching an e-mail tool when a user clicks certain links).
When the developer of an HTTP file (or web page) wants to allow for a jump
to a different place on the page, or even a jump to a new page, he or she simply
places the appropriate symbols into the file. People viewing the page just
see the link, which is most commonly specified with blue, underlined text. The
ease of jumping from site to site (called web surfing) is one of the reasons for
the proliferation of websites on, and growth of, the Internet.
Several free and commercial tools allow you to create a web page using
HTML without having to know all the rules.
One of the issues with HTML is that it is fairly limited as far as what it can do
given that it works only on text and still pictures. To achieve some of the really
cool moving graphics and web page features, other tools such as Flash,
XML, JavaScript, or other scripting languages are needed. 48