I think this is a giant load of crap. I’ve heard people say “We gave up and used tables instead of CSS” quite a few times in the last month alone. The real argument is: <div>s or <table>s for layout? And honestly? The right choice should be obvious.

The fact of the matter is once your industry sets a precedent, you should follow it. Except in rare situations, all of the layouts someone could successfully launch using tables can be emulated with divs. Divs load faster, are easier to fiddle with, and aside from the small difficulties of floating them and aligning them (which get easier with practice), are infinitely better building blocks. The best thing about using divs is you only really need one tag. Tables require nested levels of <tr>s and <td>s, which makes the code slower and harder to edit. With divs, you eliminate ambiguous structure and purpose.

And the argument that you have to use hacks and conditional comments in order to make a pure layout work is ridiculous. My design is a pretty basic layout, but look! No hacks! I can say this for a lot of other sites as well. Hacks are, by definition, tweaks, not structural elements.

I Am El Gringo makes the argument that sites like MSN and MySpace have mostly pure CSS layouts because they are overcompensating for years of criticism, and sites like Amazon, Google, and Ebay that use tabular layouts don’t … have to worry about how the web design community sees them.

Yeah, it couldn’t just be that some sites take advantage of tableless layouts to decrease load times and increase ease of maintenance. And all that stuff about them meeting design standards and surpassing them? It’s just them showing off. On the other hand, since when has Ebay EVER been a shining example of good design? Who wakes up in a cold sweat and raises their finger to the sky and says, “You know what? I want my site to look just like Ebay!” Google really has no excuse. Most of Google’s content is textual in nature. But, as in Amazon’s case as well, do we have an alternative? Yes, we deal with bad design on a daily basis, but that does not mean that we should excuse it in situations where the alternative is very easily implemented. I think it’s ridiculous for someone to say, “You’re setting the bar too high for me. I can’t handle your elevated expectations!” and then argue that the standards he is fighting against are created by haughty designers and imposed by people who don’t have any idea of how real people make websites.

You know what? Real designers appreciate standards and stick with them. Real designers use divs. And if I could learn how to use tableless layouts at fourteen, you have to have a better excuse than “it’s too hard.”

And if you’re curious, just take the time to ask yourself whether you should use tables. The answer should not surprise you.