HTML is not a scripting language!
Written by: Another Guy with a Computer
Date: June 15, 2025
Last Edited:
TLDR
HTML is a mark up language and the last two letters, the M and the L literally stand for Markup Language!
The Longer Version…
Like many people of a certain age, HTML was among the first computing languages learned. The first paragraph from almost every teaching resource related to HTML explains the letters as an acronym for HyperText Markup Language. It is likely nearly everyone reading this knew that already. Why state what everyone seemingly already knows? The reality, at least reflected by job postings is, not everyone knows this.
During my unemployment tenure, I have read thousands of job postings and with frequency, find postings asking applicants to be knowledgeable of scripting languages. The posting will continue with a list of languages such as BASH, Perl, or PowerShell. So far no problem, but the problem occurs when HTML is lumped into the list. This bothers me probably more than it should. Perhaps the technical stack involves BASH scripts which generate and publish as HTML documents. Whether this is the case I do not know, but it is incorrect to refer to HTML as a scripting language. HTML is a mark up language and the last two letters, the M and the L literally stand for Markup Language!
What is the difference between a Markup language and any other type of language? Markup languages specify concepts related to document content such as how to present, structure or format the document or information. A Markup language answers the question "how" to handle document data. A Scripting or Programming language would handle the answers to other questions like "what" data to include.
Further reading…
The Wikipedia articles on Markup Languages, Programming Languages, and Scripting Languages contain much more information than you probably want to know.