The cascade brings order to the web. Through a simple set of rules, multiple parties—the browser, the user, and the website author—can define the presentation of HTML in separate style sheets. As rules flow from one style sheet to the next, the cascade balances one rule against another and determines the winner. It keeps design for the web simple, inheritable, and embraces its natural unstable state. It has changed over time, but the cascade has made the web adaptable to new computing environments.