Merkintäkielien

Merkintäkielien, often translated as markup languages, are systems for annotating a document in a way that is syntactically distinguishable from the text. These annotations, or tags, define the roles of parts of a document, such as headings, paragraphs, or even specific data elements. Markup languages are not programming languages; they do not typically involve logic, control flow, or computational operations. Instead, their primary purpose is to structure, present, or transmit information.

The most widely known markup language is HTML (HyperText Markup Language), which is the foundation of the World Wide Web. HTML uses tags like `<p>` for paragraph and `<h1>` for a main heading to tell web browsers how to display content. Another prominent example is XML (eXtensible Markup Language), which is designed to store and transport data. XML allows users to define their own tags, making it highly flexible for various applications, from configuring software to representing complex data structures. SGML (Standard Generalized Markup Language) is an older, more complex standard that preceded both HTML and XML and provides a framework for defining markup languages. Markdown is a simpler, lightweight markup language often used for readme files and online forums, designed to be easy to read and write.