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Is it?

Just came across with this item in SitePoint tech newsletter re: the great web debate (webate): do tables still have a place in web page layout? With a resounding Negative won the arguments, I could not help but being biased about this issue. I grew up using tables in my HTML layouts. And in my line of work, I prefer using tables for quick output.

However, with the popularity of Web 2.0, and Web 3.0 in the horizon, CSS layout is now the most preferred layout by web designers and developers. CSS-based layouts saves you trouble in cross-browser issues. Plus it renders your html pages in a small file through caching of layouts and images as compared to overhead tags brought by table layouts. This saves you loading issues. And many more benefits to mention.

Below is part of the great webate:

THE GREAT WEBATE: TABLES DO NOT STILL HAVE A PLACE IN WEB PAGE LAYOUT

by Paul Annesley

Once upon a time, when most sites boasted “Best viewed in Netscape 4″ or “Powered by Frontpage”, tables were great. Possibly even as good as framesets! With just a handful of table rows, plenty of data cells, and a sprinkling of spacer GIFs, you could place your spinning mailbox icon anywhere you liked!

But thankfully those days are gone, and with them, the need to use tables for web page layout. Jump forwards a few years, and we’re in a whole new era.

“The use of tables is now actually interfering with building a better, more accessible, flexible, and functional Web.”
- http://hotdesign.com/seybold/everything.html

SEMANTICS

HTML, in its various forms and versions, is quite rich with semantics. The correct use of heading levels and paragraphs alone can introduce valuable structure to a document. Correct use of tables - for tabular data, rather than layout - is also an invaluable tool. But when all of the content is contained in layers of nested tables, determining the document structure based on the markup alone becomes near impossible. When you have a rich set of tags for describing your content, why try to jam it all into tables?

DESIGN - LOCKED IN, INFLEXIBLE

“Forgetting semantics - because that’s essentially what you’re doing when you use tables for page layout - CSS based layout still has the massive benefit of separating content and presentation. A table will lock you into a design.” - http://www.htmldog.com/ptg/archives/000049.php

PAGE SIZE & CACHEABILITY

Using tables for layout means very verbose markup that needs to be defined again and again on every page, rather than in a central (and cacheable) style sheet. Apart from making a site very expensive to maintain and redesign, this also means that every page load will be larger. Now, you might say that a few extra kilobytes per page doesn’t matter, but this is important for mobile Internet devices. Coupled with the fact that they do not scale well on small screens, table based layouts are clearly inappropriate for mobile devices.

MARKUP AS AN API

More and more, the value of cleanly structured markup is becoming apparent. The standardization of various microformats allows web authors to add small pieces of metadata to their markup to introduce rich semantics which are easily discovered and interpreted by machines. This has led to the view of markup as an API. Personally, I don’t fancy working with any API that lives in seven layers of nested tables.

USER STYLE SHEETS AND USER SCRIPTS, ACCESSIBILITY

Even if you don’t plan on utilizing microformats in your content, you are giving your users much greater value by providing clean, semantic markup. Users with special needs will be able to easily apply user style sheets and scripts to make your website accessible.

User style sheets aside, the WCAG1 states “Authors should use style sheets for layout and positioning.” The message is quite clear: “Do not use tables for layout…”

So, what’s my take?

It’s too early to tell. With some issues still need to resolve in CSS layouts, I am still inclined to use a combination of both in my web pages.