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Why isn't it? I'd say as a markup language, it touches on a lot of computer science topics: data structures, semantics, abstraction, etc. Also, I think it's a great entry point that could lead to an interest more "serious" CS topics.

http://blog.acthompson.net/2013/03/html-and-computer-science...

http://supercomputerscience.blogspot.com/2012/07/html-is-not...

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Completely agree - it's an incredibly easy first step in understanding the abstraction of code -> results.

I've actually had the privilege of walking a recently released inmate with 0 computer skills through the process of writing their first lines of html. The excitement he experienced seeing "hello world" transform just by changing it to "<h1>hello world</h1>" was incredible. I think it boils down to realizing the power of - to put this in the simplest terms possible: "typing some jargon and making things happen."

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