Comment by fragmede
2 years ago
You joke, but the first web page came out in 1991. CSS wouldn't come out into 1996, and JavaScript was 1995.
2 years ago
You joke, but the first web page came out in 1991. CSS wouldn't come out into 1996, and JavaScript was 1995.
That was the joke, don’t worry we get it ;)
Technically, there was DSSSL already though. It is missed dearly.
Whoa, that was unexpected.
But technically, DSSSL (OpenJade) was used to render pages to print/PDF and never ran as part of a browser stack (unless I've overlooked some stubborn Schemer implementing it in JS or emscripten or sth; but don't tell HN's Lisp fraction to given them ideas ...) Unlike SGML itself, which is mentioned in TBL's docs as the basis for HTML markup. Btw SGML does have its own styling language in link processes which basically just re-uses regular attribute declaration syntax, plus has some explicit state machine representation (aka "links").
But yeah, using a Lisp derivative would've definitely prevented the syntax proliferation that is CSS, its terseness/magic, and habit of re-use of property names for different purposes as a way to sneak in complex layouting features by understated surface syntax changes.