HTML is not complicated at all, that's why it became a success - pretty much anyone could learn to write a basic web page in a few weeks. Web pages became comp

HTML is not complicated at all, that's why it became a success - pretty much anyone could learn to write a basic web page in a few weeks. Web pages became complex over the years as people wanted do things that HTML was never meant to do. Like page layouts: Early on, people would use invisible images for spacing, humongous nested tables to "hack" a page layout in a language that didn't support page layouts, and pictures of text rather than actual text for example for non-standard fonts or text shadows. The primary problem is that HTML was never designed for the kinds of things we use the web for today. See the Crockford Javascript presentation for a history of HTML and Javascript, I recommend Episode IV: http://yuiblog.com/crockford/ http://yuiblog.com/crockford/ Designing an "HTML killer" is no simple task, all attempts so far have failed - from Java applets to XML. But even today you can use applets or Flash to embed more complicated programs. The web protocols turned out to be eminently hackable, and with server-side page generation, forms, CSS, Javascript and now canvas it is "good enough" for more and more tasks, so I expect it is safe to say that HTML will be with us for quite a while longer.