A markup language is an artificial language that uses a set of annotations to text that give information about the structure of the text or how it must be displayed. There are more than one markup language but, probably, the most popular ones are the HTML and the XML because of their massive use in the World Wide Web. Both of them have its origin in the SGML but after analysing them we can find some differences:
- The XML (eXtensive Markup Language), developed by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), it is a language conceived to ‘describe’ information. The main aim of XML is to help us organizing contents, what makes it also recommendable and portable to other types of applications. By contrast, the HTML (HyperText Markup Language), developed by Berners-Lee in 1991, was conceived to ‘show’ information. Its main function is to help us giving contents a format and present them through a navigator.
- Another special characteristic of the XML is that it is an open language. When we are working with the XML markup language we are allowed to create and determine our own tags and document structures. By contrast, with the HTML all tags have been predefined by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C).
- In the XML markup language each one of the tags always executes the same function so it is important to respect them. Besides, XML tags are considered ‘case sensitive’, what means, for instance, that it is not the same to write <B> or <b>. For all these reasons, the XML markup language is helping us to be more organized because due to the great tolerance of navigators, markup languages were gradually becoming a bit chaotic.
After the appearance of the XML, the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) created the XHTML (eXtensive HyperText Markup Language) to integrate in one system the benefits of the XML and HTML at the same time.
References:
- HTML. (2008, December 17). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 20:51, December 18, 2008, from
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=HTML&oldid=258572477 - XML. (2008, December 17). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 20:51, December 18, 2008, from
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=XML&oldid=258500078 - María Jesús Lamarca Lapuente. (2006). Hipertexto: El nuevo concepto de documento en la cultura de la imagen. Tesis doctoral. UCM. Retrieved 21:02, 2008, December 18, from
http://www.hipertexto.info/documentos/lenguajes_h.htm - Christian Van Der Henst S. (2003, November 11) ¿Cómo se diferencia el XML del HTML? In Maestros del Web. Retrieved 21:03, 2008, December 18, from
http://www.maestrosdelweb.com/editorial/xmlvshtml
- Miguel Ángel Álvarez. (2001, June 21) Diferencias entre HTML y XML. In Desarrollo Web. Retrieved 21:08, 2008, December 18, from
http://www.desarrolloweb.com/articulos/459.php - Carolina García Cataño y David Arroyo Menéndez. (2002). Biblioteca Digital y Web Semántica. BiblioWeb de SinDominio. Retrieved 21:12, 2008, December 18, from
http://biblioweb.sindominio.net/telematica/bibdigwebsem/bibdigwebsem.html
(This is my proposal for the answer to the third question published in the Moodle forum: identifique por lo menos tres propiedades del lenguaje XML que lo distingan de HTML y otros tantos fenómenos que se hayan propiciado tras su implantación.)
JBA 
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