The StyleSheet - For businesses that use the internet

The Arrival of HTML 5 and CSS 3

Posted January 19, 2010 By Janis Gonser |

Recently there has been big buzz in the Web industry with the release of the working drafts for HTML 5 and CSS 3. For all the non-Web-developers, let’s have a simple overview on what HTML and CSS are and do.

What are HTML and CSS?

HTML and CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) are your initial building blocks when creating a Web site. HTML is a language that is used to create the structure of your page; think about it like a well-structured outline or Word document. A set of HTML elements is available for displaying paragraphs, lists, images, forms, etc.

The Cascading Style Sheets comes into play by taking care of how those HTML elements and their content will be displayed, e.g. font styling. This is called the presentation layer and accomplished with the Cascading Style Sheet Language.

Who decides the standards and why does it take so long to implement them?

Generally speaking, the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) decides and makes recommendations. It was founded in 1994 by Tim Berners-Lee, who invented the World Wide Web. The main focus of this international group of over 350 people is the development of standards for the Web.

Although it is the strongest force when it comes to Web standards, W3C didn’t keep a handful of individuals from forming the Web Hypertext Application Technology Working Group (WHATWG) in June of 2004. Their concerns and complaints were that the W3C’s main focus had shifted from HTML to another language, XML, with the future plan of dismissing the HTML language completely.

Then in 2007, the W3C started the HTML working group, which adapted the work of the WHATWG, and used it as a starting point for its work. The group then released the first working draft in early 2008.

The development of CSS 3 was much less dramatic, but by no means any faster. The CSS working group, which is part of the W3C, released its first CSS 3 working draft in February of 2008. This release came almost 10 years after the release of CSS 2.

With the official release date for HTML 5 set for 2022 and CSS 3 taking over a decade to become a recommendation, the question roars: why does it take so long to define those specifications? The short answer is conflicts of interest among the variety of members with different motives. The important thing to know is that the official date doesn’t matter as much as the release of updated or new browsers that support the recommended standards.

What do the new standard features mean to me as a user?

When the standards are part of and supported by all browsers, including the finally-catching-up-to-standards browser Internet Explorer, developers will be capable of creating richer interfaces that are custom-tailored based upon the user and its user agent (browser). You, the end user, will benefit from HTML 5 and CSS 3 when these standards are put into action to create Web sites that are more interactive and easier to use.

Examples of some upcoming features:

• HTML 5: http://html5demos.com/
• CSS 3: http://www.css3.info/preview/

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