The Style Sheet Languages Of Then And Now

One of the most popular style sheet language used across the industry of web designing today is CSS (Cascading Style Sheets). It was once known as the "tableless web design" because it was the only style sheet language that provided an easier and simple way for web designers to create a website without the use of tables. However, other than CSS, there have also been other style sheet languages used in the past as well as in today's current trends.

Style sheet languages of the past
Because of the need for a new method in designing a website without the use of tables (and spacers), several new computer languages were introduced in the market. These computer languages are then known as style sheet languages. Before the birth of CSS, several style sheet language were already in use, but not yet standardized. Some of the most notable ones are DSSSL and FOSI.

DSSL (Document Style Semantics and Specification Language) and FOSI (Formatting Output Specification Instance) were both computer languages used in SGML. However, because of the demand for a new method in website design, these two computer languages were developed and used for XML. Although both were used as an alternative to tables, several problems were raised with its use, particularly with the DSSSL's complexity.

Introduction of CSS
CSS was a combination of two different style sheet languages, the Cascading HTML Style Sheets (CHSS) and Stream-based Style Sheet Proposal (SSP). Both of these style sheet languages were proposed to the W3C's. And out of 9 others, these two were chosen. Then both founders worked together to create a more powerful style sheet language which eventually they called as CSS.

Style sheet languages of today
CSS is one of the two standardized style sheet languages used in the market today. The other one is XSL or the Extensible Stylesheet Language. XSL began as an attempt to bring the functionality of DSSSL, particularly in the area of print and high-end typesetting, to XML. However, XSL has evolved drastically from its initial design into something very different from its original purpose.

According to many Web design Philippines experts, XSL is divided into different style sheet languages, mainly the XSLT (XSL Transformation) and XSL-FO (XSL Formating Objects). Many have cited that the combination of XSLT and XSL-FO creates a powerful styling language, though much more complex than CSS.

Another style sheet language used in the market today is the Sass or Syntactically Awesome Stylesheets. According to its founders, this style sheet language is designed as a meta-language on top of CSS, and is meant to abstract CSS code and create simpler stylesheet files.
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