Originally Posted by AndrewR Yeah, but the reason why I started this thread was to ask why that is..

logic, in the end.

think of it like a word document, only with more control. you don't use a table in word unless you're displaying a chart of some kind. i know some people use tables to do dual/tri column arrangements (popular among resumes), but you can actually do that with margins, just like you can in html.

i'll admit, sometimes tables have their benefits, but it all boils down to the logic "morals" of the developer. when i do stuff, i want to do it right. if it costs more, or requires more effort from me, that's fine as long as the outcome is still good.

to battle a popular myth, tableless isn't always cleaner. clean code comes from the developer, not what he's developing. yes, only having to type <div> does clean up the mess required by table's many tags, but tag soup is tag soup. i've seen some designs that required something absurd like 50 wrappers (at least they reused a class instead of making ids) plus all their inner elements that made a horrible mess of tag soup that could actually have been done with 1 table. tables are a double edge sword.

to be clear i support tableless when i can, but if a table get's the job done better, i'm not ashamed to use it, but that happens very rarely.