RTML is a

proprietary programming language A programming language is a system of notation for writing computer programs. Most programming languages are text-based formal languages, but they may also be graphical. They are a kind of computer language. The description of a programming la ...

used exclusively by Yahoo!'s Yahoo! Store and Yahoo! Site web hosting services.

History

The language originated at Viaweb, a company founded in 1995 by Paul Graham and Robert T. Morris, as the template language for their e-commerce platform. RTML stands for "Robert T. Morris Language". The RTML editor was offered as an option for customers (usually

small business Small businesses are types of corporations, partnerships, or sole proprietorships which have fewer employees and/or less annual revenue than a regular-sized business or corporation. Businesses are defined as "small" in terms of being able to ap ...

es) who wanted to customize their online stores more than the built-in templates allowed. The built-in templates were also written in RTML, and provided the starting point for most people who used the language. In 1998, Yahoo! bought Viaweb for $49.6 million and renamed the service Yahoo! Store. Yahoo! later offered the RTML-based

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in a hosting platform without a shopping cart, under the name Yahoo! Site. In 2003, Yahoo! renamed the Yahoo! Store service ''Yahoo! Merchant Solutions'' (part of Yahoo! Small Business), and at the same time began offering new customers the choice of a more standard PHP/ MySQL web hosting environment instead of the RTML-based Store Editor. , many new Yahoo! Merchant Solutions sites and legacy Yahoo! Stores continue to be built using the Store Editor and RTML.

Language

Although Yahoo!'s documentation does not mention it, RTML is actually implemented on top of a

Lisp A lisp is a speech impairment in which a person misarticulates sibilants (, , , , , , , ). These misarticulations often result in unclear speech. Types * A frontal lisp occurs when the tongue is placed anterior to the target. Interdental lisping ...

-based system. The language is somewhat unusual in that the programmer cannot edit the source code directly as text. Instead, keywords are presented as

hyperlink In computing, a hyperlink, or simply a link, is a digital reference to data that the user can follow or be guided by clicking or tapping. A hyperlink points to a whole document or to a specific element within a document. Hypertext is text wit ...

s in a browser-based HTML interface. Clicking on a keyword selects it, and its attributes can be edited. Blocks of code can be pushed and popped from a clipboard, using the stack metaphor. The editor maintains the code's s-expression structure automatically, and visually represents it in the web interface using indentation instead of Lisp's parentheses. Most of the keywords correspond to HTML elements, but there are also

conditional Conditional (if then) may refer to: * Causal conditional, if X then Y, where X is a cause of Y * Conditional probability, the probability of an event A given that another event B has occurred *Conditional proof, in logic: a proof that asserts a ...

s, recursion, and other control flow features that make it a "real" programming language. RTML templates are evaluated dynamically for each pageview during editing, but for the live site a "publish" process generates static HTML files from them.

Abbreviation

Yahoo!'s documentation used to say that RTML was an acronym for "Real Time Markup Language", but Graham admitted that "we made up various explanations for what RTML was supposed to stand for, but actually I named it after Robert Morris, the other founder of Viaweb, whose username is rtm."

References

External links

*Yahoo!'s ow
RTML ReferenceYahoo! Merchant Solutions Developer Network
- Yahoo's Directory of Merchant Solutions Developers

site

- transcript of a talk by Paul Graham that mentions RTML
RTML section of YourStoreForums.com
- a forum for Yahoo store owners with a dedicated RTML section
Yahoo Small Business
- Yahoo Small Business Official Website {{DEFAULTSORT:Rtml Domain-specific programming languages Yahoo!