I would posit that this association of poor markup and table-based design has more to do with a certain approach to web development than merely a raised risk of error in using table-based design. What I mean by that is that most designers/developers who are entrenched in the table-based approach are "old skool", knowing nothing of standards-based approaches, or dismissing them as unnecessary. This mindset also tends to treat HTML with disdain, and the vast majority of designers/developers under this umbrella fall into 1 of 3 categories: 1. Hacks who have been asked to produce websites for their company/department in the absence of a qualified professional; 2. "Old skool" warriors whose hard-earned table-based hacks are just too entrenched to let go of; 3. Programmers, who almost unanimously seem to treat the inevitable HTML output of their web apps with contempt, or at best, as an afterthought.
The practical upshot of this is that they don't care, or know enough to care, that their markup is invalid, and will always argue that "it works". I think the key here - and I know this was the case for me - is getting them to understand the semantic value of their markup, more so than the simple binary opposition of "tables vs css". Being inspired to strip away all the crap is the natural and inevitable result of the semantics light bulb coming on in someone's head. Then they realise that it's not an arbitrary debate about style or best practise, but about efficient and effective information architecture and delivery. Hope all that made sense! Kevin On 7/9/05 10:24 AM, "John Allsopp" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > And the location of the overwhelming percentage of these > malformations is in and around tables. > > So the use of tables appears to be associated strongly with invalid > documents (and not only through poorly formed documents, but also > through the use of invalid attributes associated with td and tr > elements). > > In short, using tables is a very good way of raising the risk of > invalid documents. > -- Kevin Futter Webmaster, St. Bernard's College http://www.sbc.melb.catholic.edu.au/ ****************************************************** The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list & getting help ******************************************************
