There are many programming languages in the world, which make it difficult for a person who wants to start learning to program to choose among them. In this topic, we will talk about one of these programming languages, which is CSS.
What is CSS
CSS is defined as a programming language that provides web designers with control over how a website communicates with web browsers including the formatting and presentation of their HTML documents.
CSS or Cascading Sheet may be a text markup language that defines website layouts and the way the website communicates with web browsers. The language allows web developers to organize various style elements and functions, such as layout, color, and fonts, and thus format and display HTML documents.
The main goal as a language was to separate the document content from the presentation of the document, which includes style elements, such as color, layout, and fonts, CSS deals with the design and feels like part of the web page, with CSS you will control text color, font design, paragraph spacing, and how columns are sized and laid out, etc, and CSS guides the HTML rendering on how to display the website at the user's end and this is the difference between programming languages.
HTML builds the document itself and organizes the information, while CSS interacts with the browser to give the document its visual appearance programmers use CSS to set certain colors, different fonts, different styles, arrange individual blocks, and other aspects to display these web pages.
CSS Language Features
- CSS plays an important role with CSS, you simply have to define a recurring style of the element once and use it many times because CSS will apply the required styles automatically and this is one of the most important basics of learning programming.
- The main advantage of CSS is that the style is applied consistently across a variety of sites, a single instruction can control many areas which is useful, and this can be learned through programming language learning sites.
- Web designers need to use a few lines of code per page to improve site speed.
- Cascading sheet simplifies not only website development but also maintenance as changing a single line of code affects the entire website and maintenance time.
- It is less complex and therefore the effort is greatly reduced.
- Helps create spontaneous and consistent changes.
- Device-friendly CSS changes, with people employing a variety of smart devices to access websites across the web, there are requirements for responsive web design.
- It can reposition and helps determine changes in the position of web elements located there on the page.
- It is easy for the user to customize the page on the Internet.
- Reduces file transfer size.
- Saves time as CSS style definitions are saved in external CSS files so that an entire website can be changed by changing just one file.
- CSS provides more detailed attributes than regular HTML to define the look and feel of a website.
Disadvantages of CSS
- CSS and CSS 1 up to CSS3 cause confusion among web browsers.
- With CSS, what works with one browser may not always work with another, web developers need to test for compatibility, and run the program across multiple browsers.
- There is a dearth of security.
- After making the changes, we need to confirm compatibility if they appear. A similar change affects all browsers.
- The world of a programming language is complex for non-developers and beginners. The different levels of CSS such as CSS, CSS 2, and CSS 3 are often very confusing.
- Browser compatibility (some stylesheets are supported and some are not).
- CSS works differently on different browsers.
- There may be cross-browser issues while using CSS.
- Multiple levels confuse non-developers and beginners, and this is the difference between HTML, CSS, and JavaScript.
CSS Styles
There are three styles you can use to implement CSS:
internal CSS
Internal or inline CSS requires adding a <style> tag in the <head> section of the HTML document.
This CSS style is an efficient way to design a single page, however, using this style for multiple pages is time-consuming as you need to put CSS rules into each page of your website.
external CSS
With external CSS, you will associate your web pages with an external CSS file, which can be created by any text editor on your device, for example, Notepad++.
This CSS type is a much more efficient way, especially for designing a large website, by editing a single CSS file, you can change your entire site at once.
Inline CSS
Embedded CSS is used to style a specific HTML element, for this CSS style you will only need to add the style attribute to each HTML tag, without using delimiters.
This type of CSS is not recommended, as each HTML tag has to be designed individually, managing your website can become very difficult if you only use inline CSS.
However, CSS embedded in HTML can be useful in some situations, for example where you don't have access to CSS files or need to apply styles to only one element.
CSS creation date
In 1994, Håkon Wium Lie proposed the use of CSS for the stylistic presentation of a web page, in 1996 the first version of CSS was adopted as a recommendation by the W3C, and then in 1998, the second version of CSS, CSS2 was adopted as a type of programming language.
Then, in 2009, CSS2.1 was approved as a revised version of CSS2, at the moment CSS3 is used, which has been greatly expanded compared to previous versions, it can be used to create shadow effects, rounded corners on blocks, as well as to set and use an image as a background As a border, this version is very convenient for working with animation.