I have found a very high correlation between malformed documents and
the use of tables (with the errors occurring in direct association with
table code).
I guess that's what is one of the many annoying things about this
"debate". Its very subjective. This particular thread started when I
reported a strong factual correlation between tabled based pages and
invalid pages in research I am doing. From then on its been largely
handwaving and opinions.
The simple fact remains, that in my research into some of the biggest and
most popular Australian web sites, not a single site out of about 100 I
have surveyed, which is table based has been valid. And the errors in
table based sites have been almost invariably associated with the table
markup.
One factor that may be (partly) a reason why errors are correlated with
tables-based mark-up is that "tables" have been very extensively used under
the ethos "anyone can create a website these days" and websites for some
companies may have been created by less technical authors with common
desktop software. In these cases, errors may not be caught. Agreed, this is
bad practice for any company but am sure it happens.
I am not sure that tables per se are the only root cause, rather that the
"commonality" of websites is part of the reason.
At present, CSS-based layouts are probably more difficult for less technical
authors, and CSS layouts are the domain of the designer/developer (CMS tools
notwithstanding). Therefore, better coding.
Clive Walker
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http://www.cvwdesign.co.uk/
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