Megan — Tue, 11 Jul 2006 20:49:54 +0000

hmmm.... actually testing it all would be too much work especially since it isn't the point of my article at all. The point is the design not the coding. The coding is really a sidenote. I think what I might do is mention both and just say that you can use whichever works best for you. I'll probably have to dig around for some beginner coding resources on that.

I may also write a separate article on the different ways to code a layout and when/why you'd use them.

technostick — Sun, 09 Jul 2006 19:10:48 +0000

I think that it's very difficult to not be biased... Personally, I find tables a lot less confusing. But, then again I learnt tables first. I think having a few guinea pigs is a very good idea.

demonhale — Sat, 08 Jul 2006 02:49:58 +0000

To further clarify my post above, the point of the course I made is that to let them decide the appropriateness of the codes/tags.

Tables for what? css for what? what is the current trend? which one would they prefer for layout? what theyre comfortable with? Thats the point if you try and read it again.

You cant force someone to design something in other than what they prefer, as davey said what gets it done with less hassle is the way to go. Since youre giving out tutorials, just point out the quickest solution to them. Just dont be biased over one designing process over the other.

DaveyBoy — Fri, 07 Jul 2006 22:11:54 +0000

Maybe you need a couple of guinea pigs to test it on Try to teach them the basics of both and see which is picked up the easiest and most logically etc. Get some feedback from them, then you might have your answer from an unbiased perspective.

Megan — Fri, 07 Jul 2006 22:02:53 +0000

Busy wrote: Tables for a layout were valid and suggested even when XHTML came out

... because it was 1998 and browsers didn't support CSS yet! Yes, please, lets not start all this again!

Thanks for all your feedback!

Edit: Correction - the xHTML 1.0 spec came out in 2000. However, as I've discussed before, the W3 has always been very clear that tables were only used as a substitute while CSS was not available yet)

DaveyBoy — Fri, 07 Jul 2006 21:43:15 +0000

All this mention of the 'wrong way' or the 'correct way' is annoying, and i'm just gonna go and earn some more money making a tabled site for someone Bet ya they don't complain about anything on the site either

heh, but seriously...this thread is just gonna develop into a tables vs css debate again, which wasn't really what the thread was about.

I said before to teach em CSS as it's the current technology.

Busy — Fri, 07 Jul 2006 20:47:35 +0000

JeevesBond wrote: Well firstly lets debunk some mythology here:
XHTML/CSS and Tables are not mutually exclusive! Meaning you can have a table in an XHTML strict page, as long as it's to hold tabular data. This is the purpose of the table, nothing more and certainly nothing less.

Tables for a layout were valid and suggested even when XHTML came out

JeevesBond — Fri, 07 Jul 2006 18:14:43 +0000

Well firstly lets debunk some mythology here:
XHTML/CSS and Tables are not mutually exclusive! Meaning you can have a table in an XHTML strict page, as long as it's to hold tabular data. This is the purpose of the table, nothing more and certainly nothing less.

In my opinion there is no point teaching someone the wrong way to do things at all. So my vote is with XHTML/CSS. Maybe show a table based site for historic interest only.

Megan — Fri, 07 Jul 2006 13:01:49 +0000

I'm not teaching a full course or anything. I'm just presenting some methods for laying out pages. I don't want to get into teaching HTML at all. I'll direct them to other sites for that. But, if I was writing a piece about how to lay out a web page, which would be focussed on the design not the coding, I would want to suggest some methods of creating those layouts and would provide some sample code. CSS or Tables?

I don't care if people still are using tables. I care about what would make more sense to someone just beginning. These are web designers of the future, not of the past. Although the audience for one of the articles accounting students who really just want to get the job done and most likely won't go much further.

Busy — Fri, 07 Jul 2006 10:25:59 +0000

While Demonhale's insight is good, sadly it doesn't work that way in the world wide web (or from a book), in a class you can force the reasoning behind things and set the pace, in a "let them go at it" tutorial they will (and do) jump straight to the neat stuff - displaying content.
I admit to even doing this, I remember when I was looking at a fancy programming book, I skipped all the first stuff until I got to the output examples as I find it easier to work out whats happening from the errors, when you crash the puter then you go back (after the 2nd or 3rd time lol) to the beginning and read the boring (most important) structure bits