Limitations of HTML
In the HTML language is used to present the content in such a way that it is adapted for the Web without being able to give it a good design. Although there are tags, associated with some of their attributes that can apply modest retouching and thus end the default rendering applied by HTML.
The arrival of HTML5 heralds a move towards a Semantic Web and offers more features that further enrich integrated content. However, like its predecessor, it is not concerned with design.
This leads us to believe that HTML has limitations since it cannot apply an attractive visual to the content it is able to integrate. However, W3C has always been clear on this point: "HTML is a language for describing and presenting web content", that's all. An alternative is therefore needed if we want to have a successful web page that appeals to Internet users. This is where the CSS comes in.
Before the CSS
HTML was born with the appearance of the Web around 1989. At the time, CSS did not exist and therefore web page creators were forced to do everything with only HTML, namely creating content and presenting the design. After a while, a problem starts to arise, the code of the web pages becomes more and more complex, because it was necessary to put many tags for integration on the one hand and formatting on the other hand. The CSS then appeared.
What is CSS?
CSS stands for Cascading Style Sheets. It is a style language whose syntax is extremely simple but its performance is remarkable. Indeed, the CSS is interested in the formatting of integrated content with HTML.
So, if you want to change the colour of your background, the font of your texts or the alignment and margins of your objects and succeed in other feats, CSS is here to serve you.
As with HTML, CSS started small and grows with each version. The first version was released around 1996. These were CSS1, followed by CSS2 which was the most popular until the appearance of HTML5 which integrated new features that led to the development of CSS version 3 (called CSS3) which is the most widely used standard currently. The term HTML5/CSS3 is even used to refer to the two technologies that then go together.
CSS is a client-side language, i.e. its syntax is understood by the browser that executes it with HTML. This can lead to compatibility problems, since browsers sometimes do not always understand some CSS codes in the same way. Fortunately, these are rare cases that are gradually disappearing.