Tables or div tags? That is the question.

[bigmattyh]

I'm curious, folks. Which of the two is your tool of choice for page layout?

I've been using tables since the dawn of thyme, but I'm now seeing the advantages of div tags, if used and displayed properly. What's the word, good friends?

(Oh, and PS: I'm talking primarily. We all know that there are perfectly appropriate times for both, for special circumstances. I want to know what you use to do the primary layout of your pages!)

[nuno]

Tables :)

[DirectPixel]

I use table for layouts, div for alignment.:)

[Cary]

Tables for me :)

[krs-one]

Argh, you people really don't know what you are talking about.

Tables were not made for layout, they are made for tabular data. For example, the forum listing page on this forum is tabular data. Its the same stuff, repeated X number of times. That is what tables were designed for. NOT for layout.

Div's and Span's were designed for layout. You can absolutely position a div, float a div, fix a div (not available in IE since it sucks). You can do most of that stuff with tables as well, but thats not what they were meant for.

-Vic

[tubedogg]

If tables were never meant for layout, where was CSS 8 years ago? They may not be needed for layout now, but they certainly were until CSS was actually invented and implemented.

And I really don't think you want to get into an argument about which browser "sucks". I think the fact that IE still holds a 90% share of the market despite Mozilla 1.0 and Netscape 6.0/.1/.2 and Opera 6.0, not to mention that Opera still has issues with basic HTML4.01 and Netscape can't manage to render a page the same way twice...

[Radon3k]

Tubedoggg layin the law down...:D

[krs-one]

I bet if Netscape/Mozilla were shipped with 90% of the PC's sold, they'd also hold 90% of the market share.

I'll attend to your other points later.

-Vic

[JamesUS]

I don't think they would. If the browsers 'suck', and people experience issues with Netscape's rendering they will get fed up and move away. There are lots of reasons to move NS -> IE but not one reason to move IE -> NS or Opera or Mozilla.

[Chen]

Originally posted by JamesUS
If the browsers 'suck', and people experience issues with Netscape's rendering they will get fed up and move away.
You'd be surprised to know how many lazy, or just computer-phobic people there are out there that will keep NS/Opera/Mozilla just because they don't know how to switch, or can't be bothered to.

[JamesUS]

Oh I know, but I think that with the amount of publicity etc that IE gets I'd be surprised if many stick with Netscape.

[Chen]

Originally posted by JamesUS
Oh I know, but I think that with the amount of publicity etc that IE gets I'd be surprised if many stick with Netscape.
Exactly, and this publicity is caused by shipping IE with most computers, like krs-one said.

[bigmattyh]

In this same vein, I'd like to add an observation about the anti-MS crowd.

Whatever the merits of the "anti-trust" laws that MS may have violated, one of the chief claims of MS detractors is that MS makes terribly inferior products. And because IE has been such a marketing success, the claim goes that MS has poisoned the marketplace by reducing competition. But by virtually all measures, IE is far superior than its competitors. Certainly, IE has such a great market share because of its wide distribution, but it would not have remained successful for very long if it had had the same problems with bugs that Netscape had. Users would have trashed it for another alternative, as I did Netscape (around the time of 4.7).

IE raised the bar, and consumers made the switch on their own. The mass distribution alone doesn't count for all the people who made the switch from Netscape to IE. People have a way of being brand-loyal to an extent, and Netscape couldn't do what it took to keep its own users, let alone lure new ones.

[tubedogg]

Originally posted by FireFly

Exactly, and this publicity is caused by shipping IE with most computers, like krs-one said. No. What James is saying is that even if Netscape shipped with every PC, people (even some computer illiterates) would switch to IE because a) Netscape is *not* superior, no matter how much being based on an open-source product gives it street cred among hackers (hackers, not crackers), and b) IE would still be generating massive publicity because that is the other thing that Redmond is good at (the first being putting out a browser decent enough to bury Netscape hands-down).

I'm not saying IE is perfect - it's far from it. It's just the worst browser out there except for all the others.

[Skeptical]

I don't think any one of us can predict what would have happened if MS hadn't resorted to all the bullying and tying of IE to the windows OS. Yes IE is in every way superior to Netscape today, but back when Netscape had 90+% of the market, IE was crap. You guys do remember IE3 right?

Now let's say MS had to compete fairly. Things would have been much tougher and Netscape might have had a chance to offer a much much better product than the one today. What we have today is the result of a lost cause. Discouraged by sales, stock prices, disgruntled employees/founders leaving, and eventually being bought out by AoHell, I'm sure any software company would not have faired so well either. Look at the progression of Netscape. Since 4.x was out, it pretty much got stuck there forever. There were no new releases or innovations. All AoHell allowed Netscape to add were those stupid "shopping" and Netcenter links.

Also, perception of superiority is relative. If Netscape has 90+% of the browser market today, lots of people would complain about IE too. They both play to their own proprietary standards, and webmasters who create websites conform to what the majority uses. So when a site looks fine with one browser and all messed up with another, people will jump and say the latter one is crap.

[DirectPixel]

My philosophy is make use of what you've got.

Microsoft got lots of OS market share, and a place for icons on the desktop.

What's wrong with packaging one product into another? What other products package something into another? Hmm... There's Norton AntiVirus, AOL Instant Messenger, KaZaA, and plenty more.

Microsoft made use of what they had. Apparently, they had a heck of a lot more than Netscape. Sucks for them. They got beat, it's because they didn't have enough 'stuff'.

Everybody should know how Microsoft works by now... they make a crappy version 1.0, make a better 2.0, and by 4.0, the thing's awsome.

[Skeptical]

Originally posted by eiSecure
What's wrong with packaging one product into another? What other products package something into another? Hmm... There's Norton AntiVirus, AOL Instant Messenger, KaZaA, and plenty more.

Microsoft made use of what they had. Apparently, they had a heck of a lot more than Netscape. Sucks for them. They got beat, it's because they didn't have enough 'stuff'.


Actually nothing. But what they resorted to doing was bullying computer makers into NOT including Netscape in their systems. They also have allegedly messed with their OS code so competing software wouldn't run correctly. With the market share that they have I believe that is abuse of monopoly power. That's not competing fairly.

[heretic]

I stopped using Netsape about 2 years ago. They couldn't handle CSS, includes, tables, DHTML... it couldn't do anything.

[tubedogg]

I was gonna say...Netscape didn't need any help burying themselves. 4.x was so riddled with bugs that had nothing to do with Microsoft supposedly hobbling competitor's ability to run on Windows that it wouldn't have survived even if IE hadn't become decent. Opera etc. would have eventually taken over because Netscape 4.x, quite simply, sucked. Then they wait spend 4 years building 6.0, and suffice it to say that didn't help anything.

[rylin]

Originally posted by Skeptical

They also have allegedly messed with their OS code so competing software wouldn't run correctly.

See,
when you run a linux desktop and you're forced to VNC into another computer just to be able to browse "properly", you know there's something wrong with the competition.

People say MS made it hard for non-ms browsers etc to work properly in windows?
You know.. shockingly enough, Mozilla on Win32 and Mozilla on the various linux desks i've used behave pretty much the same... blame that on MS too?

Like tubedogg said, IE is the worst browser out there, except for the other browsers.

You can't blame that one on MS.. really :)

[JamesUS]

Originally posted by Skeptical


Actually nothing. But what they resorted to doing was bullying computer makers into NOT including Netscape in their systems. They also have allegedly messed with their OS code so competing software wouldn't run correctly. With the market share that they have I believe that is abuse of monopoly power. That's not competing fairly.

Well I know for a fact that Opera and NS run just fine on my Windows XP system. I don't use them for pleasure but do use them occasionally for testing, and I've never had any issues with them. They both work exactly as designed. Having said that, however, I still like IE best.

Until someone can show me some concrete evidence that they have prevented other applications from working then I will not support the view that they are abusing their position. Yes they have a monopoly. Do they abuse it? No. Do they deserve a monopoly? Yes. Why? Because they make the best software around.

[tubedogg]

I have never understood this whole "bundling" matter. I don't use software because it's bundled, I use software because it's what I want to use. A weak argument could be made that the computer illiterate don't know how to change software, but I don't think that computer illiterates will put up with crappy software any more than I would. Of course, the millions of AOL members make a strong argument against that statement, but I'm still strongly convinced they are a fluke...:rolleyes:

[Skeptical]

Originally posted by tubedogg
I have never understood this whole "bundling" matter. I don't use software because it's bundled, I use software because it's what I want to use. A weak argument could be made that the computer illiterate don't know how to change software, but I don't think that computer illiterates will put up with crappy software any more than I would. Of course, the millions of AOL members make a strong argument against that statement, but I'm still strongly convinced they are a fluke...:rolleyes:

But people like you or I don't make up for the majority of the internet. Also, when you have a 28kbps/56kbps modem, it makes it very inconvenient to go and download a competing browser. Heck for some they don't even know how.:D

[DirectPixel]

AOL gets members by throwing their traps and tricking innocent users into inserting their CD into their CD-ROM drives.:p

[Sinecure]

Originally posted by eiSecure
My philosophy is make use of what you've got.

I hope you won't be posting in my philosphy forum :) hehe lol

[DirectPixel]

Go away you freak.:p

[Skeptical]

Originally posted by eiSecure
AOL gets members by throwing their traps and tricking innocent users into inserting their CD into their CD-ROM drives.:p

But I thought aol WAS the internet ?!:confused:

[bigmattyh]

I just think the whole debate is a reflection of the two basic ways of looking at failure... blame yourself or blame others. I think if Netscape was a viable concern, they'd have done a better job of competing with the reality of the marketplace instead of waging a legal battle against Microsoft. Look what happened to Apple when it spent all its focus on trying to strike down Windows in the late 80's... That was a battle well worth the fight... :rolleyes:


AT ANY RATE, I'm still curious about the <div> tag guys out there. Have you found that they do the job just as well or better than tables? I'm working on a project right now to convert my site to div-tag based, and so far, it's going pretty well. What's more is that it seems to load faster, too, which I could be imagining, but I hope I'm not.

[chrispadfield]

For netscape the real problem was not bundling the software with Windows, although clearly that is a problem; it was the price. If you have two companies competing and lets say the both sell their browser for $25. Both have about a 50% market share and both are doing pretty well. However one company also makes an operating system that 95% of computers use. So what happens? The company that makes the operating system raises the price of the operating system by $25 and makes the browser free. Everyone still buys the operating system because they have no choice and now everyone uses the free browser because it is free; importantly the OS making company still has the same revenue (well probably more in fact) but the other companies revenue has dropped - which makes development pretty hard.

I am not saying this is exactly what happened, it is not but you can see the problem. With IE free netscape can never charge for a browser. Sure there might be a niche market for paid browsers which opera is going for but I am not personally convinced they will run for that long.

[rylin]

Originally posted by bigmattyh
AT ANY RATE, I'm still curious about the <div> tag guys out there. Have you found that they do the job just as well or better than tables? I'm working on a project right now to convert my site to div-tag based, and so far, it's going pretty well. What's more is that it seems to load faster, too, which I could be imagining, but I hope I'm not.

any possible speedups would have to be that the page can be rendered faster due to the nature of div tags vs tables (where the entire table has to be received before it's rendered)

[Skeptical]

Originally posted by chrispadfield
For netscape the real problem was not bundling the software with Windows, although clearly that is a problem; it was the price. If you have two companies competing and lets say the both sell their browser for $25. Both have about a 50% market share and both are doing pretty well. However one company also makes an operating system that 95% of computers use. So what happens? The company that makes the operating system raises the price of the operating system by $25 and makes the browser free. Everyone still buys the operating system because they have no choice and now everyone uses the free browser because it is free; importantly the OS making company still has the same revenue (well probably more in fact) but the other companies revenue has dropped - which makes development pretty hard.


That was a big discouraging factor yes. I still remember when Netscape first came on the market with their IPO. Theirs skyrocketed like crazy. But within 6 months they started to drop and drop and drop. It just never stopped. And mind you, this was when all the other IPOs were going through the roof. Why? Because everyone knew that MS had pointed their entire focus on bringing NS down.

[bigmattyh]

Originally posted by okidoki
any possible speedups would have to be that the page can be rendered faster due to the nature of div tags vs tables (where the entire table has to be received before it's rendered) That's what I was thinking.

Also, another thing is that I had previously set up my entire page within one big table. Unfortunately, the table would sometimes not render correctly (as seems to happen every now and then, on every browser I've used, and on Mac and Windows), leaving whole parts of the page displaying incorrectly. So another bonus, yee!