[Webpro] tablelessness

[Mike S. Krischker]

At 13:52 02.02.2005 -0600, you wrote:
>He condensed the argument to the lowest common denominator...as usual.

It's true that we can replace tables with CSS and get less code. We all know
that, and I think that Rudy was quite oversimplifying.

We talked about situations where we abandon tables to write highly complex
CSS code, when tables would have done it nicely. Do we get closer to the
semantic purity of html, if we apply combinations of wrappers, floats and
negative margins, just to simulate some simple columns?

Maybe the html looks clean and nice, but look at the complexity of the CSS
behind it. It's always as if something wanted to say: Look, a website is not
meant to be in columns. And you can't put a line of text to the bottom of an
element, it has to be at the top. And so on.

Any why? Because Nokia says that it's fun to look at websites in your
cell phone? Or some time in the future your fridge can order milk for you?
 From time to time, things can be questioned. Why should every website be
forced into the capabilities of a cell phone display: Line by line? Seems
that the 'wider range of user agents' is being paid with a smaller range
of layout possibilities for all user agents together.

Regarding the clean code, Jason has put it well:
--------
I can easily create a base table with
one set of tr's, three td's and clean code throughout.  Css can apply to
table elements just as simply as divs, while the table itself lends much
more stability to the 3 columns.
--------

What do you readers prefer: A non-semantic, clean table, or hacking CSS?