Does using tables instead of CSS to control layouts have any legitimate use? [closed]

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I'm updating a lot of code for a web app and tables are used everywhere to control layout.

I'm relatively new to HTML programming and am not sure what to make of the use of tables where CSS could seemingl开发者_运维问答y be used. Is this just from a time now gone? Bottomline, is the latest iteration of CSS and browser support acceptable enough to consider styling using tables antiquated? In my opinion, the CSS is much easier to use. It's a bit subjective, I know, but I think a consensus can be reached.

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Use tables for tables. CSS for everything else.

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The guy who first thought of using tables for layout wrote an article in 1997 stating, "The Web is Ruined and I Ruined It". There are countless similar articles, such as "Tables for Layout is Stupid" and the like. CSS has been around for that long and no developer worth his salt would not use it to layout his web pages. We're on the 3rd iteration of it and CSS itself is used to style tables by default in the browsers themselves.

At best, tables are a predefined, immovable grid of boxes you must fit your design into. Compare that to CSS which has limitless flexibility and reasoning for tables for layout flies out the window.

Do not use tables for layout. Use CSS. Nothing else to discuss.

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This seems like a pretty subjective question, but basically the answer is that if the data lends itself to a table, put it in a table element. You can still style the tables with CSS, the HTML should describe the data whereas the CSS styles it.

If you have a table of data, don't make a "fake" table using divs/spans and make it look like a table. Put it in a table and style as appropriate.

If tables are being used for tricks like a 2-column layout, where there is no tabular data...yes that way of styling is obsolete and depreciated.

Keep in my though, I don't believe its a horrible "sin" to use tables for styling if it saves time, makes cross-browser compatibility easier, and looks fine. Remember, the only one (usually) reading your markup is the browser. If its going to take hours to rip out all the tables for the exact same end result, you might want to question if its worth the time/effort. On the other hand, when starting from scratch, you may as well learn the modern methods and create some maintainable markup.

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Tables aren't going anywhere, it's in the HTML5 spec for a reason. You shouldn't use a table to style your website, but if you have some tabular data, then put it in a <table>. Just as you would put a paragraph into a <p>, a list of items into a <ul>, or a header into a <h1>.

People are so rash in their judgement of tables because they were used for evil for so long. I can use a bunch of <div> containers and a crap load of CSS to mimic an unordered-list, or just use semantic markup.

So, the lesson to be taken from this is, use tables for tabular data, and NEVER for styling. You should also never use things like valign="center" and cellpadding="0" on your table elements, this should be passed onto the responsibility of CSS to style.

P.S. look at Google's code, they're still using tables, and they're one of the main companies who are pushing HTML5.

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It's easier (arguably), and has use for email clients. Legacy support is also better for IE 6 and below as well as other older browsers. Other than that, I have yet to see something tables can do that cannot be done with modern CSS. So the short answer is not any more.