Are Tables for Layouts All Bad?
Dave Shea over on mezzoblue has made a bit of a summary post about some recent discussion around the net regarding using tables for layout in some situations and where it’s appropriate.
His discussion echoes a lot of what I’ve thought for a while: sometimes it’s OK to use a very basic table as the layout structure for a site, so long as you don’t go overboard. Anyway, it’s an interesting read.
Posted Saturday June 5, 2004 in Web Development by Chris Curtis
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One of my main problems with tables, even in the sparing use that Dave explains here (which I agree with him is reasonable) is that your style is still not separated wholly from your content.
Site redesign and possibly even simple modification becomes ridiculously complex when you put any design elements into your actual HTML. Even a fairly simple site will require you to make modifications to multiple, perhaps dozens of files just to make a minor change.
The sites that make use of style-switchers showcase the power and flexibilty afforded to developers who take the additional time up front to create a site that has the needed separation. For their sites, it looks like a toy or gadget just to make it neat, so many might miss just how important the point their existence makes.
I would go so far as to say that using tables with zero pixel GIFs for spacers are wrong, evil, and wrong; but I don’t think I’d fault anyone for deciding that they wanted to use a simple, nonconvoluted table for the “big picture” site layout. If they were ok with any difficulties they might face in the future when making a change, that’s their decision. But me, I’ll only use tables for what they were created for: displaying tabular data.
By Derek Jones on June 6, 2004 at 11:21am link