Why is using tables for website layout such an evil

 

I am a Winforms and business engine developer who is using asp.net for the first time in over 2 years, and in that time I have noticed a few convention changes.

What is the logic behind the anti-'tables for layout' movement?

Is it to allow css classes to be used to handle layout, and if so, should this really be an issue on pages you are fairly sure will remain static, or is it just considered 'ugly'?

A few additional points:

  • Don't be a fanatic about it. CSS isn't perfect, and there are some things that can be done much easier with tables. So if you need to, put a little table in there. It won't kill you.

  • The major "evil" of table-based layouts was the kind of deeply-nested mess that used to be the only way to get precise control over the page. You would have tables within tables within tables, and transparent images strategically placed to control spacing. I think this is pretty rare nowadays, and CSS will let you clean up 90% of this mess.

  • The "semantic web", where tags are there to give meaning to the page, not to describe the layout, is a good goal. However, the current version of HTML doesn't go very far toward reaching it. As a result, you will ALWAYS have plenty of tags in your pages that are just there for layout, with no other meaning. That doesn't mean you shouldn't try to separate content and layout as much as possible; it just means you won't get there 100%.

    • It makes accessibility hard. Imagine you're a text browser and you want to read out loud the content of the website to blind persons. Most Table-based Layouts tend to be very hard to scrape and to "understand" for a machine.

    There IS a lot of elitism/politics/fanaticism going on in these discussions of Tables vs. CSS, but on a large scale, CSS Layouts are cleaner than Table-based layouts.

    Theoretically, they are also easier to maintain. Say, you want to move the navigation from the left to the right? Sure, just change one CSS file and you're good. But then again, this usually falls flat on more complex websites where the CSS are often deeply nested and so complex that changes are not easy, whereas templating systems make table based layouts not completely unmaintainable.

    Its worth mentioning that <table> tags are still legitimately used when displaying tabular data. The rule of thumb I use is if I'm displaying something that could easily live in a speadsheet, then a table tag is the way to go.

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