Standard Generalized Markup Language
From "The Concise SGML Companion Glossary (Neil Bradley), http://www.bradley.co.uk/Pages/Topic_SGMLCompanion.htm :
- SGML (Standard Generalized Markup Language) - The ISO 8879 standard developed in 1986 to assist electronic delivery and publication of text-based documents. Classified under `Information processing - Text and office systems'. Developed and maintained by the ISO/IEC JTC1 SC18/ WG8 committee.
From "A Gentle Introduction to SGML," edited by C. M. Sperberg-McQueen and Lou Burnard (http://etext.virginia.edu/bin/tei-tocs?div=DIV1&id=SG):
- SGML is an international standard for the description of marked-up electronic text. More exactly, SGML is a metalanguage, that is, a means of formally describing a language, in this case, a markup language.
Might also stand for "Sounds Good, Maybe Later", a joke referring to SGML's intimidating complexity.
Created originally in 1969. See The SGML History Niche for details of SGML's early development. http://www.sgmlsource.com/history/
Try the ExtensibleMarkupLanguage (XML), which is less complicated. XML was originally intended to be a 'simplification' of SGML (80% of the power with 20% of the complexity).