The systemic failure of implementing CSS principles

April 3, 2025

The systemic failure of implementing CSS principles

Before CSS came along, HTML did not have a version specifically dedicated to styling. But, back in the days when I started creating webpages around 1996, I still managed to style and layout pages using HTML's attributes and tags. I remember doing a lot of copy-pasting to get the right look by reusing those inline styles and trying to tweak everything. It was a nightmare, but it worked for the time.

Before CSS came along, HTML did not have a version specifically dedicated to styling. But, back in the days when I started creating webpages around 1996, I still managed to style and layout pages using HTML’s attributes and tags. I remember doing a lot of copy-pasting to get the right look by reusing those inline styles and trying to tweak everything. It was a nightmare, but it worked for the time.

Source: The systemic failure of implementing CSS principles | Andrea Davanzo

A look at the history of web styling and CSS architecture from before CSS (but not including Cascade Layers).