Everything that is made for the web uses one fundamental technology: HTML. The first step to becoming a web developer is understanding how HTML works and interacts with other technologies. Eventually, we’ll build on this understanding by adding CSS, JavaScript and, finally, Ruby.

HTML (Hypertext Markup Language) is the basic language that websites are built in. It’s right underneath the surface of everything you see on the web and you can uncover it with a couple quick steps. Try this:

1. Open a new browser window or tab and go to flatironschool.com.
2. Right-click anywhere in the browser screen and choose “View Page Source.”
3. Behold the HTML!

That might look a little overwhelming right now, but don’t worry—it will get clearer as we go on. All you need to pay attention to right now is the fact that we can use HTML to create the essential structure all of our webpages.

We mentioned above that HTML is a markup language. That means it tells the browser how to display information. For example, it says when a piece of text is a paragraph, or a link. Later, we’ll also meet a styling language and then a programming language. They all do something slightly different with data, but they also work together to make the web.

Think about it this way: if our web page is a robot, the HTML is the metal body, CSS is the coating of paint on top of the body and JavaScript is what makes the robot limbs move. Different technologies, but we need them all to make fully dynamic websites and web apps.

Now that we’ve introduced HTML, let’s dig into it a little more and see how it actually works in the next lesson.