http://www.mezzoblue.com/archives/2004/05/15/tables_oh_th/
>Read him, live by him. Also Eric Meyer, my new God. His new CSS The
>Definitive Guide is a pure eye opener.
>
>However hybrids work, we should still be using semantic markup in them.
>Nesting tables or using <td class="heading"> doesn't help. I've come to CSS
>from an interest in creating accessible web sites. From my experience with
>working with screen readers and speech browsers, web sites are simply more
>accessible when the markup makes sense without the CSS and the CSS is there
>to create a visual presentational layer that is nice to look at, but doesn't
>mask the underlying content. I'm lazy. I want to write one page and have it
>be read by any type of user agent out there. (Note I said user agent, not
>browser, this includes mobile phones, printers, car appliances and screen
>readers including visual browsers).
>
>I am very frustrated with the level of support for CSS the current browsers
>do, its difficult to support, but is it more difficult than writing pages
>that code to browsers? I think this is simpler. If I can write one HTML
>document and make it look okay in 95% of the browsers out there today (not
>perfect, okay). I'm happy. If I have to use some browser hacks to achieve
>this so be it. Its still a lot easier to fix a browser hack in one style
>sheet than a cross browser implementation of something in x number of html
>pages.
>
>I for one, code my pages in the simplest HTML possible now. Much easier to
>maintain than those nested table thingies I did for years. When I am
>satisified that the HTML document says what I want and is understood in both
>visual and aural browsers, then I start playing with the look. I might add
>some structural markup then (such as classes, divs or span) to help achieve
>a look, but what I want to say in a page remains a heck of a lot more
>important than the eye candy (IMHO).
>
>I'm not a designer, I'm a programmer. I want to solve problems. I also
>work a lot with Federal Government agencies and departments that are
>required by law to have everything be accessible to those with disabilities.
>Separating my content from my presentation helps me get there easier and
>faster. I am also not invested in the idea that everyone has to see my page
>in the same way. I can't control the size of someone's screen, the size they
>might set my font, or the colors they choose to use. If I get over the fact
>that they might not see my layout or my design they way I envision it then I
>am much more concerned that they get the content the way I envision it.
>
> _____
>
>From: Irvin Gomez
>
>Good readin material for you, Sandy, from Zeldman, a well-known standards
>advocate:
>
>http://www.zeldman.com/dwws/pdfs/0735712018C_08.pdf
>
>Especially insightful is the part that goes:
>
>A Transitional Book for a Transitional Time
>To the kind of standards geek who spends hours each week arguing about the
>evils of presentational markup on W3C mailing lists, what we've done here is
>evil and harmful. For that matter, we've also sinned by using tables as
>anything other than containers of tabular data, by specifying widths and
>heights in our table cells and by setting image margins to zero in markup.
>In fact, in the eyes of some, this entire chapter is sinful. Some standards
>geeks might not think much of this book, quite frankly. In their view, we
>should be telling you how to write semantic markup instead of letting you
>think it's okay to sometimes use tables for layout.
>But the thing is, it is okay. Maybe it won't be okay some years from now,
>when designers use and browsers support purely semantic future versions of
>XHTML and rich future versions of CSS and SVG. But this is a transitional
>book for a transitional time. "Web standards" is not a set of immutable
>laws, but a path filled with options and decisions. In our view, people who
>insist on absolute purity in today's browser and standards environment do as
>much harm to the mainstream adoption of web standards as those who have
>never heard of or are downright hostile toward structural markup and CSS.
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