[thelist] arguments pro css & xhtml / con tables

[Matt Warden]

On 6/20/06, Christie Mason <cmason at managersforum.com> wrote:
> I usually try to stay out of evangelical CSS vs Tables discussions, but the
> posting below uses the same argument that I've seen over and over and it's
> usually successful as a discussion stopper. I paraphrase it as  "If you
> really knew what you were doing then you wouldn't use tables."  That's bunk.

Forgive me, but your paraphrasing is what is bunk. The post to which
you are responding was itself a response to the complaint that CSS
designs are too hard to do.

It's something I hear every time this discussion comes up. But CSS
designs are not hard. They are different. They require a different
thinking than table designs do, and thus for a traditional table-based
designer, CSS designs are "hard" because there is a learning curve.
They are "hard" because it takes a while for the designer to wake up
and realize she can't just use this new tool in her old way.

> Look at the layouts featured on csszengarden.com and what do you find?

Why are you using CSS Zen Garden in an argument about CSS vs. Table
layouts? It is an experiment for graphic artists. It really has no
place in this debate.

> The day that someone can show me how to take a site like
> ConstructionLifters.com and not use a single table, that's the day I'll sign
> onto using CSS for everything.

This layout would be pretty simple to do with YUI's grids.
http://developer.yahoo.com/yui/grids/

I am even 75% of the way through a wizard which will spit out the
markup necessary for the grid layout you want. So getting a layout
like this site would cost you about 10 clicks of a mouse.

-- 
Matt Warden
Oxford, OH, USA
http://mattwarden.com


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