DIV's vs. Tables or CSS vs. Being Stupid

Question

I know that tables are for tabular data, but it\'s so tempting to use them for layout. I can handle DIV\'s to get a three column layout, but when you got 4 nested DIV\'s, it

Answer 1

In my opinion, the bias should be in favour of CSS over IE6 - i.e. unless there's an insanely good reason (e.g. your site is only targetted at people using IE6, which would be weird), it's better to 'alienate' people using IE6 rather than people with poor vision and/or automated user agents. Usage of IE6 is decreasing; the latter group is increasing in number. Even if your site doesn't look perfect in IE6, it will probably be easy for those users to read it than a table-based layout will for those who can't see it.

This is a very general question, so it's difficult to answer with specifics. The two books that are excellent resources are:

• Bulletproof Web Design, Dan Cederholm
• CSS Mastery, Andy Budd

If you only have to spend an hour designing your overall site layout, that's not bad going.