Evolution of Web Technologies

In 1991, Tim Berners-Lee introduced the first web standards with HTML. The initial version of HTML had 18 tags, including basic structural elements like <p> and <h1>. It was groundbreaking but lacked multimedia support.

CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) was introduced in 1996. Amazingly, it took almost three years for CSS to gain widespread adoption, as early browsers had inconsistent support, making web design highly unpredictable.

JavaScript, launched in 1995, revolutionized interactivity on websites. Initially named Mocha and later LiveScript, it wasn’t widely adopted until AJAX (2005) allowed asynchronous data loading, enabling dynamic web applications like Gmail.

HTML5, released in 2014, marked a significant milestone, introducing native support for multimedia, graphics, and offline capabilities. It rendered many third-party plugins obsolete, enhancing performance and cross-platform compatibility.

WebAssembly (Wasm), a binary instruction format, is transforming web performance. Introduced in 2017, it allows execution of code at near-native speed, opening doors for complex applications like gaming and scientific simulations to run smoothly in browsers.

CSS was once used to solve a Rubik's Cube, demonstrating its unexpected computational capabilities beyond styling web pages.