Genesis

And push the limits we did. HTML began its life as a simple language for tagging research papers. Browser vendors and graphic designers took one look at its lack of layout capabilities and gave it a great big thumbs-down. Tricks and hacks like <FONT> tags and the misappropriation of the table element were developed to overcome these limitationshacks that undermined the very structural purposes for which HTML was developed in the first place.

Basic elements were misused for layout effects completely unrelated to their original intended purposes; elements with specific functions were ignored because they didn't look very nice. Proper structure was ignored in favor of a site's visuals.

Of course, the major browser manufacturers at the time weren't helping. Before the situation got better, it seemed that it was going to have to get worse. The two major playersMicrosoft and Netscapekept heaping proprietary extension on top of proprietary extension to keep ahead of each other as the famed Browser Wars waged. While competition keeps innovation alive, it can also stifle; Web authors were forced to deal with multiple versions of the same site because HTML coded for one browser rarely worked as expected in another, if at all.

In short, it was a big mess. The sacks of money carelessly thrown around during the dot-com boom aided the Web's continued growth despite the problems. A budget for two versions of the same site was easy to justify when the money flowed. However, by the turn of the millennium, both content authors and investors had finally had enough.