markup

[Rusher]

How is a markup language different from a programming language?

[suwunk]

It is not uncommon to see people call HTML a programming language, or call HTML authoring programming. In various classifications, HTML might be classified into a section titled "Programming". Even documents purported to be HTML tutorials or references may say so. However, few people are consistent in such usage and call HTML documents programs; this might indicate that they don't really mean that HTML authoring is programming.

It's hard to tell what is behind this, but calling HTML a programming language might reflect the use of the word "programming" to mean just writing something that will be processed by computers rather than people; after all, we might (reasonably) say that writing HTML is coding. Alternatively, perhaps the varying meanings of the word "program" in everyday language ("TV program", "study program" etc.) confuse things. Or it might mean a misunderstanding caused by the fact that HTML is used in conjunction with programming. In particular, an HTML document might contain a program embedded into it, typically a JavaScript program, or an HTML document might be generated by a program, typically a Perl program (script). People may miss the essential distinction between HTML and constructs embedded into it. For example, the HTML markup
Programs vs. markup (http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/prog.html)