Nah, semantics battles are boring. We all know what we mean when we say that HTML is not a programming language to people who are trying to get into programming

Nah, semantics battles are boring. We all know what we mean when we say that HTML is not a programming language to people who are trying to get into programming. If we tried to explain to them all the "ifs" and "buts" they would lose interest before we started talking. We don't talk about it among ourselves because we know it's just pointless semantics anyway. And if people are seriously wasting time debating whether HTML is a programming language, then that's just bikeshedding. > The idea that you could build something fun for your friends, but potentially anyone in the world could discover it, was intoxicating. So was the language itself. Most raw HTML then was easy for humans, even newcomers, to understand. You didn’t need a primer in formal logic to grasp that most tags needed to be opened and closed sighs. Alright. My worthless two cents, knowing full-well that I should just stfu. The idea is that you get hooked on "the possibilities of HTML" and then you learn actual programming because your newfound passion will drive you there. You have a clear path with Javascript so it's not even scary, unless you are willingly forcing yourself to stay away from that "scary programming" like my parents do when I show them anything that was invented in the past 30 years. If you stay stuck in HTML land then you're not really programming no matter how much you stretch the definition. Unless you can show me an HTML page that can perform any arbitrary computation without JS or CSS. But since you threw away Turing completeness in the first paragraph, this argument is moot -- the reason why I hate discussions on semantics in the first place. > When haters deny HTML’s status as a programming language, they’re showing they don’t understand what a language really is. A language is a thing. A _programming_ language is another thing. A "program" is literally "a series of coded software instructions to control the operation of a computer or other machine", so I don't know what you mean when you say that: > Language is not instructing an interlocutor what to do in a way that leaves no room for other interpretations; it is better and richer than that Unless you missed the "programming" part of "programming language".