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SGML:Short History

In the late 1960s, as computers started to be used widely in certain arenas, a group called the Graphic Communications Association (GCA)created a layout language called GenCode. GenCode was designed to provide a standard language for specifying formatting information so that printed documents would look the same, regardless of the hardware's used.

In 1969, Charles Goldfarb led a group of people at IBM who built upon the GenCode idea and created what became known as the Generalized Markup Language (GML). Whereas GenCode was primarily a procedural or presentational markup language, GML aimed to define not only the appearance but to some degree the structure of the data.

Nearly 10 years after GML emerged, the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) established a working committee to build upon GML and create a broader standard. Coldfarb was asked to join this effort, and has since become known as the "father of SGML," which was the end product of ANSI efforts. The first draft of standard Generalized Markup Language (SGML)was made public in 1980; the final version of the standard emerged in 1986.

Since that time, the language has been enhanced as needed. For example, in 1988 a version of SGML was created that was designed specifically for military applications (MIL-M-(28001). SGML is called a metalanguage, Which is a language for creating other languages. sgml and xml is most important.

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