It changed my mind too. As for only now realising that tables really are the only easy way to do it, I guess partly we've come to accept that the web is broken thanks to IE, so it doesn't stand out as odd that layout is hard with CSS.
Re:Why CSS Should Be Used for Layout
by joe_the_user on Wednesday February 04, 2009 @01:25AM
(#465343)
I would like to also say that the failure of CSS/Div is kind-of discouraging. Within the history of html, tables were intended for tabular data. The ideal of divs is to have an element that is specific to layout rather a tag for tabular data that one just happens to use for tabular.
Html, in general, is a messy. Html is one of the most amazing programming success stories, in the sense that it is the widely programming language by non-programmers. SIMPLE html created the web. Html that is that was so simple that the friggin w3c standards would never accept it now.
And the "progress of standards" has essentially only made this mircle lousier. You could blame corporations but it really seems like simple bureaucracy was just as much to blame.
I was Div-only and now I think mixing Tables and Div can be good, even preferable.
"One of the problems with criticising CSS is that it's very hard to write good CSS, so pointing out problems with CSS begs the question of whether this is an indictment of CSS or one's coding ability. The problem is particularly pernicious for layout. (One indication of this is how many CSS layout tutorials there are on the web.)"
This sealed it. The tool should the servant, not a thing that always trying to learn more about. Anything that really is inherently hard to use is bad, plain bad. There's no excuse. Things that are until you learn something can be great.
I've done complicate layout in CSS and the process of trying to make it work never got easier or clearer. At a certain point, you have to say "this is just a bad way to do things".
It would be nice if CSS/html somehow added objects which had the virtues of both Divs and tables. BUT I now realize that design mantra "never use tables, always use divs" was just ideological nonesense. Not that I would always use a table but I will certainly consider both options from now on
I realize now that one of the truly evil aspect of divs is that they keep you from having localized object on your page. Want to guarantee that you will have three column on your page, good friggin' luck.