Today, the W3C announced CSS 2.1 as a “candidate recommendation”.

W3C is pleased to announce the advancement of “Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) 2.1″ to Candidate Recommendation. Implementation feedback is welcome through 20 December. CSS is one of the Web’s most widely implemented languages. By separating the presentation of style from the content of documents, CSS simplifies Web authoring and site maintenance. CSS 2.1 is derived from and is intended to replace CSS Level 2. A snapshot of usage, the specification brings the language in line with implementations, fixes errata and adds a few highly requested features including the inline-block value for the display property, the color orange and the values pre-wrap and pre-line for the white-space property. Visit the CSS home page. — W3C

For those who are unfamiliar with CSS it is a basic set of design rules that can control the “look and feel” or design of a web page. When used properly, CSS can radically simplify front-end markup, removing all “design aspects” such as position and coloring from the HTML markup itself.

Some of the benefits are a smaller page size and easier redesigns. Today’s web developer and designer should have CSS experience on their resume.

More info can be found at the spec and the CSS explanation.