A scientist named Tim Berners-Lee created the web—the World Wide Web or www—in 1991. And the language he used to create it was HTML.
Yes, there was the internet before the creation of the web. Using the internet, people could share files, emails, and whatnot. But it was not as democratized as it is today. Only a few lucky and privileged knew how to use the internet. But the birth of the web changed this.
In the early days, it was only scientists who used the web. They published papers and linked them to other papers. So, Tim Berners-Lee’s web was actually a web of scientific papers. But soon, people realised that it could be a web of anything. You can create a page about cats and link it to a page about dogs created by someone else. And the page about dogs could be linked to a page about poop. And so on.
Today, the web is a web of anything and everything. And it uses the same language, HTML, that Tim Berners-Lee used on the day of the big bang of the web.
Using HTML, you can publish an essay, a photo, or a video in a few minutes. If the web is a world, HTML is atoms—the smallest unit that creates something. And if you know how to create a webpage and a website, you feel power in your hands.
Yes, you can create web pages and content using various platforms, online tools, and apps. But taking help from someone makes you dependent on them.
Take the analogy of our homes. Masons build our homes. But what if we had the same skills as a mason and could build our homes? Wouldn’t that be wonderful?
You build your home, brick by brick, the way you want. Then you wake up one day and say that because I don’t like them, I’ll change the X, the Y, and the Z parts. And BAM! You change major parts of your home in a few minutes or hours.
Home is just one analogy. In the digital world, you can create parks, offices, and cinemas using HTML.
If this makes any sense to you, you should learn HTML. It will give you the power to create your own website on the web, brick by brick.
If you’re convinced, we shall move on to the next chapter.