HTML and CSS Reference
In-Depth Information
A Brief History of HTML
HTML 1.0-2.0
HTML 3
HTML 4
These were the early days; you
could fit everything there was
to know about HTML into
the back of your car. Pages
weren't pretty, but at least
they were hypertext enabled.
No one cared much about
presentation, and just about
everyone on the Web had
their very own “home page.”
Even a count of the number
of pencils, paperclips, and
Post-it notes on your desk
was considered “web content”
back then (you think we're
kidding).
The long, cold days of the
“Browser Wars.” Netscape
and Microsoft were duking it
out for control of the world.
After all, he who controls the
browser controls the universe,
right?
Ahhh…the end of the Browser
Wars and, to our rescue, the
World Wide Web Consortium
(nickname: W3C). Their plan:
to bring order to the universe
by creating the ONE HTML
“standard” to rule them all.
At the center of the fallout
was the web developer.
During the wars, an arms
race emerged as each browser
company kept adding their
own proprietary extensions
in order to stay ahead. Who
could keep up? And not
only that, back in those days,
you had to often write two
separate web pages: one for
the Netscape browser and
one for Internet Explorer. Not
good.
The key to their plan?
Separate HTML's structure
and presentation into two
languages
—
a language for
structure (HTML) and a
language for presentation
(CSS)
—
and convince the
browser makers it was in their
best interest to adopt these
standards.
But did their plan work?
Uh, almost…with a few
changes (see HTML 4.01).
1989
1991
1995
1998
