Your questions are covered in exhaustive detail at:
http://www.w3.org/pub/WWW/MarkUp/
That gives an overvew of HTML. The derivative of that
page (i.e. the direction vector) is one link away at:
http://www.w3.org/pub/WWW/MarkUp/Activity
In the last two days, I have done an extensive update of
those materials. This seems an opportune time to notify
folks of the update.
It's also clear to me that folks aren't given appropriate
background materials when they subscribe to this list.
I've updated the subscribe.txt file that folks get
when they first subscribe. I'll attach it below...
Welcome to www-html!
This is the public mailing list for technical discussion among those
interested in enhancing the Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) or
building systems that support HTML. It is explicitly intended for the
collaborative design of new systems, software, protocols, and
documentation which may be useful to the HTML developer community.
Information about this mailing list is available on the web at:
http://www.w3.org/pub/WWW/Mail/Lists.html#www-html
There are approximately 1000 subscribers on this mailing list. Before
you post to the list, make an effort to ensure that your posing
is novel, and not covered in the background materials.
Please consult the overview of HTML:
http://www.w3.org/pub/WWW/MarkUp/
the WWW FAQ:
http://sunsite.unc.edu/boutell/faq/www_faq.html
and check the archives to see if a topic has been discussed
before:
Dan