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It has been around ten years since cascading style sheets or most commonly known as CSS have been around, considering from the beginning during its development in the year 1997. But, surprisingly it has been into public consciousness relatively for a short time now. The main reason for this is that until 2000, its features were not supported and recognized by most of the web browsers. Gradually down the line there have major improvements where almost all the web browsers support atleast the minimum level 1 of all the web browsers and a few support level 2 and some have even gone way beyond and support level 3 as well.

As a matter of fact, you cannot find even a single site which would not be utilizing CSS in some for or the other in their development and design. In fact, all the web sites that are completely developed using HTML are becoming extinct or following the footsteps of dinosaur. There are no two thoughts to the fact that both HTML and CSS are important aspects of web design and will continue to do so for years to come. CSS has been successful in bringing in a widespread impact upon W3C.

Originally CSS was developed just with the intent of providing the web developers a means for defining both the feel and the look of the web pages. Using this, web developers were able to treat both the design and the content of the web page as two different entities. As a result of this HTML was able to perfume its functions more in accord with its actual intended purpose which is to focus only on the markup of the content of any particular website.

The style sheet in CSS or cascading style sheet here refers to the document itself. This concept is nothing new for the web developers, infact the documents have been used by the web developers for many years now. To be more specific, style sheet can be defined as those specifications which are used for governing the layout of the particular website, whether it is on print or online. The cascading style sheets are not only capable of determining the technical specifications of any particular document on the web but also provides with an added functionality of communicating with the viewing vehicle, here the web browser. The most important thing to be remembered here is the keyword Cascade. The cascading style sheet, by virtue of their nature, is capable of flowing or cascading through any number of separate style sheets or documents.

In the areas of XML and XHTML markup, cascading style sheets go way beyond the font specifications. This clearly indicates that Cascading style sheets can be used for defining the look of any XML and XHTML markup language that is being used by you in your website. Cascading style sheets can be considered to be one of the most powerful tools that can be used by the web designers which can undoubtedly impact the entire feel and look of the website. It is crucial to have a thorough knowledge of CSS if you are planning to be a web designer.

HTML better known as Hyper Text Markup Language is a tool for writing scripts to develop web pages. It has come a long way since it came into existence for the first time in 1991.

Web designing does still use HTML but it is not the only language used for scripting. A quick glance at the history of HTML will tell you that HTML was the first language used for scripting to build a web page. It was the start language for sharing documents online. The brain behind the idea for developing a system to share documents and pages was Tim-Berners Lee. This name is still famous for the HTML tags which started the internet tour and helped make communication easier. The HTML tags consisted of a simple design for HTML. The 22 elements that were introduced in the HTML then have lost some 9 elements on its way to upgradation. The fourth version of the HTML named HTML four consists of 13 elements of the first version.

HTML is inspired from the SGML language which is Standard Generalized Markup Language. Though a little technical it is definitely good to understand SGML because it started up the whole project of W3-World Wide Web. A SGML is normally termed as a metalanguage where you are free to use various markup languages. In the basic HTML too SGML tagging was used in the initially stages but later HTML never came up to be a proper SGML document and it was preferred not to use SGML tagging any further. Upgradation did not support the SGML. Right now if you go in for programming HTML scripting is considered a baby and anyone is able to learn it. But the Lee HTML disappeared in the wind and a new HTML was created by the IETF. This HTML was the HTML working group which concluded to be the HTML 2.0 version. Now here is where we get the standard HTML on which further upgradation to make it better were made. Not many of us are aware of this history, but it is certainly interesting. Well as a matter of fact you should also know that there was no HTML 1.0 as such. There were some previous HTML and its drafts which were different from the HTML 2.0. To create the difference a version number was given and what is better then 2.0. For better results and develop a web environment suitable to all, the version 2.0 was not sufficient. Some additions were needed in this version. So additions, changes and more such work was done on the version 2.0 under the guidance of IETF for this. The version released in 2000 by the W3C is known to have an international standard which was the version 4.0. The current version running in the markets is HTML 5.0. HTML has come a long way since its inception in 1991. A lot many versions have been developed since its initial dismissal and each version found something new to exhibit to the users. The final version has made things user friendly and people definitely find HTML easier to use then any other programming language for the web designing.