Is HTML Considered a Programming Language

Is HTML considered a programming language?

No, HTML is not a programming language. The "M" stands for "Markup". Generally, a programming language allows you to describe some sort of process of doing something, whereas HTML is a way of adding context and structure to text.

If you're looking to add more alphabet soup to your CV, don't classify them at all. Just put them in a big pile called "Technologies" or whatever you like. Remember, however, that anything you list is fair game for a question.

HTML is so common that I'd expect almost any technology person to already know it (although not stuff like CSS and so on), so you might consider not listing every initialism you've ever come across. I tend to regard CVs listing too many things as suspicious, so I ask more questions to weed out the stuff that shouldn't be listed. :)

However, if your HTML experience includes serious web design stuff including Ajax, JavaScript, and so on, you might talk about those in your "Experience" section.

If HTML is not a programming language, what am I doing if I am doing HTML codes?

Edit 2:

Wow, apparently you can call HTML/CSS a programming language because HTML5/CCS3 is Turing-Complete by by accident (for first link, check comments).

Main Answer:

"How about HTML?" I take the stance that to be programming, the language has to be Turing Complete. So in my definition you can't be a Regex programmer. The more lean definition is that it needs variables & control statements, as simple as having an 'if' and a 'branch' instruction. So as you point out, pure HTML is not a programming language. But HTML in the real world isn't just html text files!

I would call an HTML user a HTML Techonologist or HTML author but if someone said they were a HTML coder or even a programmer, I wouldn't bat an eye or try to correct them. I don't think many people write plain HTML and the moment one adds Javascript or allows pages to be generated by PHP, python, or anything else it crosses the programming language definition. (edit 2: The moment you add CSS3 it becomes Turing Complete and thus a 'real' programming language)

Edit 1:

I like an answer I found about why 'real programmers' are so defensive over reminding people HTML/CSS is not 'real programming'. The OP's question dealt with what to call HTML authors but this question comes up because 'real programmers' are so firm in making a distinction between their work. I like this quote from Kramli (linked before)


There are times when the difference between programming languages and other languages really does matter. Quite often, however, we can all communicate perfectly effectively when just lump them all in together.

Is HTML5 a programming language?

Short Answer: No.

Long Answer: No, it isn't. HTML as defined by the standard is just a markup language, exactly as it was in its previous versions.

But what does that mean? It means that it is supposed to structure your data allowing you also to define semantics with the use of markers, but it cannot process or modify your data as you would do using a programming language. Also it has no concept of input or output as is the case in programming languages​​, where you get an input to analyze and produce an output.

By the way HTML5 is coming out alongside a wider interest for the web and also stronger technologies (such as newer versions of javascript and css) which make new web applications even more powerful and limitless.

Please, read this great resource to learn more about HTML5.

Are Mark Up languages considered programming languages?

The term "programming language" isn't defined rigorously enough for this to have a good answer. It really depends on the context in which the term is being used. In many contexts (usually if languages like C++, D or Java are being heavily mentioned) a "programming language" has to be Turing complete. However, XML and HTML do meet a more lenient set of criteria. They have a grammar and are textual means of expressing to a computer what you want it to do. Therefore, in some contexts they could be considered declarative programming languages.

how do you define a language that is not compiled

Maybe you mean this

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interpreted_language

An interpreted language is a programming language for which most of
its implementations execute instructions directly, without previously
compiling a program into machine-language instructions. The
interpreter executes the program directly, translating each statement
into a sequence of one or more subroutines already compiled into
machine code.

Is XML a programming language?

A programming language?

First, XML is a format to represent data. It has originally be designed for this data to be essentially text documents or messages, but nothing prevents you from representing any data you wish, including programs. There at least three big examples of programs expressed in XML that come to mind:

1. XSLT is a Turing-complete language whose only standard format is in XML, whose essential purpose is data transformations.
2. ANT is a task manager, used mostly for compilation management, whose tasks are described in XML.
3. GCC-XML is a format that GCC can use to output the result of its parsing of a source code.

On a more esoteric note, you could cite o:XML, a full-fledged XML programming language.

So as any XML, DTD or Schema semantically extends XML itself, you could technically argue that XML itself, through some of its extensions, is a programming language.

Is there much to know?

Second, XML is a vast nebula of specifications, and most people only barely scratch the surface. Most people don't even imagine the corner cases in XML itself, let alone what's in XML Namespaces, XML Schema, XML Information Set, XQuery, XPath, XSLT, XSL-FO, XML Canonicalization, XML Signature, Efficient XML Interchange, XML Linking, etc.

So, yeah, I'd say there's plenty to know...

How is HTML converted into machine language

HTML is not converted into "machine language" in the sense in which you're thinking (when you compare it to C/C++). HTML can be parsed by any program. How that program deals with it is entirely up to the author of that program. In the case of the browser, which is compiled, it looks at the HTML and parses it and acts on it in some way. Obviously everything is running in the processor as bytes in memory, so, in that respect it eventually winds up being byte code, but again, this is very different from "compilation".

The primary difference in semantics is that when a program is compiled, the byte code are actual instructions that the processor acts on. Whereas what's happening here is that the HTML data is simply being viewed as ascii bytes that the parser program reads in and then deals with in one way or another. It would deal with a paragraph of written text the same way. The information isn't telling the processor to do anything directly. It's instructions for the intermediate layer that is the program reading them (again, in your case, the browser).

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