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What’s the difference between HTML, XHTML and HTML5?

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Knowledge is power and information gives direction to this power. The more you know, the better you become. And nothing can replace the internet when it comes to the fast and authentic medium of information. Starting its journey in 1969, the internet was at first only used for transmission of data and messages between academic computer centres.

Internet is a networking base that connects millions of computer devices to share data and communicate with one another over the vast sphere of networks that are connected globally using routers and switches.

The evolution of the internet came in 1989 with the invention of World Wide Web (WWW) also termed as web, by Tim Berners-Lee.  The web is a channel through which information is being generated, collected and stored on the internet, and the same is connected through hyperlinks and URI (Uniform Resource Identifier). The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) defined the web to be the universe of network-accessible information, an embodiment of human knowledge.

There’s a lot of data on the web, which includes this article you’re reading to any social networks you use or the emails. All of this data is compiled under different links, also known as websites.HTML is used to write webpages and Javascript is a client-side scripting language.

HTML is an evolving language, changes with time to offer more specifications and facilitate faster and accessible tools for webpage designing. With the evolution of the web, it has been revised several times, and the three most popular revisions are discussed in this article.

It is to be noted that Javascript can be embedded in HTML but visa-versa is not possible. Also, HTML requires a web browser to display content whereas JavaScript requires JS engine to run the code.

Also read: What’s the difference between IPv4 and IPv6?

What is HTML?

HTML | Photo by Miguel Á. Padriñáñ

Developed in 1990 by computer scientist Tim Berners-Lee, HTML stands for Hypertext Markup Language, which can be used to dictate the structure and layout of a web page to the computer and converts a word document into a file that can be viewed and taped on the internet.

HTML files are written in an opening and closing <html> tag, which define page elements within the website.

HTML 1.0

It was the first version of the markup language written by Berners Lee in 1993. During the time due to low popularity and few internet connections, only a handful of people were involved in website designing. HTML 1.0 was very limited in its approach for styling and presentation of content, but it did support inline images.

Due to its restrictive features, all the webpages appeared in the same fashion. In HTML 1.0, the following things were not possible.

  • Changing font-size.
  • Inserting tables and frames.
  • Forms usage.
  • Changing webpage background settings.

Also read: What’s the difference between Java and Javascript?

What is XHTML? How is it different?

XHTML, which stands for EXtensible HyperText Markup Language is a combination of HTML and XML language that was recommended by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) in 2000. With XHTML developers could stay positive about the past and future compatibility of the content alongwith using features offered by XML (Extensible Markup Language)

XML is also a markup language like HTML, which was designed to simplify data storage, carrying and transporting. It has the ability of self-description, which describes what data is and with XML, the data can be accessible to all sorts of reading machines such as a computer, voice machines, news feeds and among others.

XHTML was a more firm and cleaner version than the previous HTML revisions. It contained three parts, as discussed below.

  • DOCTYPE: The <!Doctypehtml> declaration helps the browser to display web pages correctly, and is written once at the top of HTML tags.
  • Head: This section is to declare the title and other attributes. <head> <title>Page Title</title> </head>.
  • Body: The body tag contains the content of a web page. <body> The content </body>

While designing an XHTML webpage, it is mandatory to add the DTD (Document Type Definition) declaration.

Why XHTML is different?

XHTML was different and more convenient than HTML and its revisions, due to the following reasons.

  • Easy to maintain and edit webpage content.
  • Documents in XHTML could easily be transferred through wireless devices.
  • XHTML functioned in union with CSS to create easy to update webpages feature.
  • Applications like Scripts and Applets were consolidated in one language, which reduced the workload and webpage designing time.
  • XHTML documents had much cleaner code that could easily be indexed by search engines.

Also read: What’s the difference between POP and IMAP?

What is HTML5? How is it different?

What's the difference between HTML, XHTML and HTML5?

Published in 2014, HTML5 is the latest version of the markup language. It is a result of the joint venture between the World Wide Web Consortium(W3C) and Web Hypertext Application Technology Working Group (WHATWG). The aim of this update is to facilitate the latest multimedia compatibility, include elements and attributes for the usage of modern websites.

HTML5 only makes use of the Doctype declaration as it enables the creation of more interactive websites by embedding audio, video and other graphics on the webpage.

Why is HTML5 different?

  • Backwards-compatible with Javascript and older software.
  • Vector graphics and tags are embedded in HTML5, which is possible with the support of Flash, Silverlight, VML, etc.
  • Added many new elements such as <article>, <aside>, <audio>, <bdi>, <canvas>, <datalist>, <details>, <embed>, <figure>, <figcaption>, <footer>, <header>, <keygen>, <mark>, <meter>, <nav>, <output>, <progress>, <rp>, <rt>, <ruby>, <time>, <track>, <video>, and <wbr>.
  • Introduced features like drag and drop, geo-location services.
  • Cache data offline with the help of SQL.
  • Enables to draw figures and shapes like a circle, triangle, rectangle and many more.
  • Competent to handle incorrect syntax.

Also read: What’s the difference between C and C++?

Vishal Chandel

Vishal Chandel

Reader, Writer, Lawyer, Horse Rider. Vishal thinks he's funny, unless you beer him; then he's actually funny!

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