Stephen,
I like this list in that people are so willing to debate the
issues, as that is how we learn and understand what is best, but I
think we should not blindly use CSS. We must use it wisely and
examine how we are using it so we don't make new mistakes.
using CSS is not a blind or unreasoned choice.
It is a technology expressly designed for this purpose.
That simply isn't true of using tables.
I guess what keeps me coming back back to this pointless and
frustrating discussion is certainly not for my sake. I could care
less that people choose to continue using tables for layout. But when
people advocate it as a sensible, reasonable alternative to CSS in
any circumstance, then I feel it my weary duty for the sake of people
who might be mislead by this to take up the cudgels.
Statements like "its horses for courses" (in terms of whether to use
tables for layout or CS for layout), perpetuate the erroneous idea
that there is some equivalence between the two techniques.
There is not.
To be clear, one is an entirely outmoded hack that was necessary to
create certain types of layout coming up on a decade ago. It has
persisted because as much as anything, people continue to build these
kinds of layouts, and because developers are in many ways sensibly
reluctant to abandon the skills they have acquired.
On the other hand, CSS is an entire technology, developed over more
than a decade, by very smart sensible people, with much peer review
and collaboration, to solve precisely problems of layout in a much
more sophisticated, systematic and general way, also taking into
account issues of accessibility as fundamental aspects of the
technology.
to afford the two equal footing when it comes to choosing a valid
layout technology is literally absurd.
john
John Allsopp
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