I arrived at CSS and HTML from a background in print layout with Adobe PageMaker and InDesign in the 1990s. Professional layout programs like InDesign attempt t

I arrived at CSS and HTML from a background in print layout with Adobe PageMaker and InDesign in the 1990s. Professional layout programs like InDesign attempt to separate content from layout and styling. The first step in creating a print document is to set up a grid of empty containers. The second step is to fill those containers with placeholder text (often Loren ipsum). Step three is to develop a style sheet to style the text so that styles can be updated in one place and applied consistently throughout a document. The last step is to flow content, written as plain text in an external copy editing tool, into those containers. Coming from that background, HTML (the document structure) and CSS (the style sheet) are relatively intuitive. I can see how they were influenced by tools like InDesign. However, browser quirks are very frustrating. I try to avoid situations where I need to deal with them, or if I do I try to find CSS written by others that guides the way. I think it’s probably unfortunate that screen layout techniques, where screens are variable size and interactive, were so heavily influenced by print layout, where pages are of fixed size. On the other hand, maybe HTML + CSS was too influenced by Microsoft Word style desktop publishing where layout and content are in a single document and not influenced enough by InDesign style publishing were layout, content, and structure are each distinct. But relatively few people are ever exposed to professional print layout tools like InDesign. Having recently gotten into parametric CAD and constraint based design, I’m hoping to see more of that approach make its way into both print and screen design.