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A history of markup languages

By Tibs / Tony Ibbs

This version for the Write The Docs, Prague, 2018

Written using reStructuredText.

Converted to PDF slides using pandoc and beamer.

Source and extended notes at https://github.com/tibs/markup-history

Timeline

  • 1960s TYPSET and RUNOFF, GML
  • 1970s roff, runoff, nroff/troff, \text{\TeX} in SAIL
  • 1980s \text{\TeX} in WEB/Pascal, \text{\LaTeX}, SGML, TEI
  • 1990s HTML, setext, Docbook, WikiWikiWeb, XML
  • 2000s reStructuredText, AsciiDoc, markdown

The types of markup

Presentational or Semantic

...but also lightweight, and maybe programmable

1964: RUNOFF

.LINE LENGTH 60
.LEFT MARGIN 0
.PARAGRAPH 5
Call us on our toll free number

.CENTER
1-800-555-5555

and we will respond as soon as convenient.

1969: GML / 1986: SGML

DTD for a list:

<!--      ELEMENT MIN CONTENT             >
<!ELEMENT list    - - (item)+             >
<!ELEMENT item    O O (#PCDATA, (list)*)  >

and such a list:

<list>
<item>First item</item>
<item>Second item</item>
<item>Last item</item>
</list>

1970s: roff, nroff, troff, groff

.TH CORRUPT 1
.SH NAME
corrupt \- modify files by randomly changing bits
.SH SYNOPSIS
.B corrupt
[\fB\-n\fR \fIBITS\fR]
[\fB\-\-bits\fR \fIBITS\fR]
.IR file ...
.SH DESCRIPTION
.B corrupt
modifies files by toggling a randomly chosen bit.
.SH OPTIONS
.TP
.BR \-n ", " \-\-bits =\fIBITS\fR
Set the number of bits to modify.  Default is one bit.

1977/1978: \text{\TeX} / 1983: \text{\LaTeX}

\begin{center}
\rule{5in}{0.1mm}
\end{center}

\section*{Captain Competent strikes again}

The superhero is a familiar concept in comics, science
fiction and many other fields. However, I am more
interested in what might be called `the competent
hero'. This is a subtler form of protagonist---a
person who has attained {\em competence} in their
daily life.

1987: TEI

<lg type="sestina">
<lg type="sestet" rhyme="ababab">
<l>I saw my soul at rest upon a
   <rhyme label="a" xml:id="A">day</rhyme></l>
<l>As a bird sleeping in the nest of
   <rhyme label="b" xml:id="B">night</rhyme>,</l>
<l>Among soft leaves that give the starlight
   <rhyme label="a" xml:id="C">way</rhyme></l>
<l>To touch its wings but not its eyes with
   <rhyme label="b" xml:id="D">light</rhyme>;</l>
<l>So that it knew as one in visions
   <rhyme label="a" xml:id="E">may</rhyme>,</l>
<l>And knew not as men waking, of
   <rhyme label="b" xml:id="F">delight</rhyme>.</l>
</lg>

1991: HTML

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
  <head>
    <title>This is a title</title>
  </head>
  <body>
    <p>Hello world!</p>
  </body>
</html>

1991: Docbook

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE article PUBLIC "-//OASIS//DTD Simplified DocBook XML V1.0//EN"
"http://www.oasis-open.org/docbook/xml/simple/1.0/sdocbook.dtd">
<article>
 <title>DocBook Tutorial</title>
 <articleinfo>
  <author>
   <firstname>Adrian</firstname> <surname>Giurca</surname>
  </author>
  <date>April 5, 2005</date>
 </articleinfo>
 <section>
  <title>What is DocBook ?</title>
  <para>DocBook is an SGML dialect developed by O'Reilly
  and HaL Computer Systems in 1991.</para>
 </section>
</article>

1991: setext

This is the title. There can be only one.
=========================================
  Body text must be indented by two spaces.

A subheading
------------
  **Bold words** and ~italic~ are supported.
  _Underlined_words_ are also supported.
  `Backquoted words` are not touched.

> This text will be represented using a monospaced font.

* This text will have a bullet mark before it.

.. Two dots introduce text that can be ignored.
.. Two dots alone mean the logical end of text.
..

1994/1995: wikiwikiweb

Paragraphs are not indented.

* This is a list item
** This is a sub-list item

  Indented text is monospaced.

We have ''emphasis'', '''bold''', '''''bold italic''''',
and a LinkToAnotherPage.

But we can A''''''voidMakingAWikiLink.

No HTML, tables, headers, maths, scripts.
No links within a page.

2001/2002: reStructuredText

This is a heading
=================
This is a paragraph. Body text is not indented.

  - This is a list item. Words can be *emphasized*,
    **strong** or ``teletype`` - yes, that's paired
    backquotes [1]_.
  - This is a list item as well.

    This is more of the second list item. It is indented
    appropriately.

This is a sub-heading
---------------------
Sub-section body text is not indented either.

.. [1] Note the indentation inside the list item.

2002: Asciidoc

This is a heading
-----------------
This is a paragraph. Body text is not indented.

- This is a list item. Words can be _italic_, *bold* or
 +mono+ - yes, that's paired plus-signs.
- This is a list item as well.
+
This is more of the second list item. It is "`joined on`"
by the `+`.footnote:[Note the quotation marks around
_joined on_.]

This is a sub-heading
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Sub-section body text is not indented either.

2004: markdown

# This is a heading

This is a paragraph. Body text is not indented.

- This is a list item. Words can be *emphasized*,
**strong** or `inline` - that's single backquotes.
- This is a list item as well.

    This is more of the second list item. Its first line
  must be indented by 4 spaces or a tab.

## This is a sub-heading

Sub-section body text is not indented either.

(No footnotes. But <tt>HTML</tt> is allowed.)

Fin

  • 1960s TYPSET and RUNOFF, GML
  • 1970s roff, runoff, nroff/troff, \text{\TeX} in SAIL
  • 1980s \text{\TeX} in WEB/Pascal, \text{\LaTeX}, SGML, TEI
  • 1990s HTML, setext, Docbook, WikiWikiWeb, XML
  • 2000s reStructuredText, AsciiDoc, markdown

Written using reStructuredText.

Converted to PDF slides using pandoc and beamer.

Source and extended notes at https://github.com/tibs/markup-history