to truly understand how this little file does its workyou need to know something about html syntaxinternet addressesand file permission rules let' take quick first look at each of these topics before we move on to the next example html basics promised that wouldn' teach much html in this bookbut you need to know enough to make sense of examples in shorthtml is descriptive markup languagebased on tags-items enclosed in pairs some tags stand alone ( specifies horizontal ruleothers appear in begin/end pairs in which the end tag includes an extra slash for instanceto specify the text of level-one header linewe write html code of the form text the text between the tags shows up on the web page some tags also allow us to specify options (sometimes called attributesfor examplea tag pair like text specifies hyperlinkpressing the link' text in the page directs the browser to access the internet address (urllisted in the href option it' important to keep in mind that html is used only to describe pagesyour web browser reads it and translates its description to web page with headersparagraphslinksand the like notably absent are both layout information--the browser is responsible for arranging components on the page--and syntax for programming logic-there are no if statementsloopsand so on alsopython code is nowhere to be found in example - raw html is strictly for defining pagesnot for coding programs or specifying all user interface details html' lack of user interface control and programmability is both strength and weakness it' well suited to describing pages and simple user interfaces at high level the browsernot youhandles physically laying out the page on your screen on the other handhtml by itself does not directly support full-blown guis and requires us to introduce cgi scripts (or other technologies such as riasto websites in order to add dynamic programmability to otherwise static html server-side scripting