On Mon 05 Dec 2011 06:25:53 PM PST, wsg@webstandardsgroup.org wrote:
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From: David McKinnon<david...@mac.com>
Date: Mon, 05 Dec 2011 18:22:11 +1100
Subject: Divs for tabular data
OK, so I'm working on a project in which the developers are laying out tabular
data using divs.
The site is using the 960 CSS grid system so making the 'tables' work just
means applying the appropriate class to align each div/table cell to the grid.
They say this is good because:
It's fast
They can manipulate the resulting DOM much more easily than they could with a
table
Developers find it easier to, say, add or remove columns from the tables,
without having to edit the code all the way down the table (no wysiwyg editors
here!)
To me this doesn't seem very good because:
It's not very semantic (although they've used micro data in the class names for
some divs)
It doesn't seem very accessible -- I might be wrong about this, but to me good
semantics is foundational to accessibility
There's a lot of markup -- I know tables aren't exactly light on code, but they
seem quite light and efficient in comparison
It doesn't seem to me like the code will be very easy to maintain for anyone
but the developers.
The lead developers assure me that this is good practice for speed and
efficiency, but I'm not convinced.
Nevertheless, I don't want to be advocating tables as best practice if they
aren't.
What do you think? Are tables too hard for the real world in large sites or web
apps where large amounts of DOM manipulation is required? Or have these guys
taken the 'Tables are bad' thing a bit too far?
Kind regards,
David
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Tables are the best way to display tabular data since the method does
everything automatically, that is, without the extra work to make divs
behave as tables. In my opinion, tables are perfectly adequate as long
as they're not used for layout (though I'm guilty of this sin from long
ago.)
One possibility may be that your developers have an easier time
manipulating the grid with CSS when using divs instead of cells. But
this is just a guess.
--
Regards
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Alan C Whiteman | Visualis Web Design
(562) 305-2862 | http://visualiswebdesign.com
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