 CSS vs table based layouts
tripngroove: CSS layouts offer a whole host of advantages over their ancient table-based brethren. Historically, there has been a lot of discussion on this, but the conversation has basically been concluded with CSS layouts overwhelmingly recognized as the best option.A CSS layout lets your site be flexible, scalable and semantically pure. When you do a table-based layout, you're basically locked into that presentation unless you choose to overhaul all your files, and chances are good that you've also partially destroyed the semantics of your document, which ruins accessibility and can be bad for SEO. Tables were basically a layout hack that let designers solve a presentation problem for which adequate tools didn't exist; their true purpose is to display tabular data. When browser support for CSS became relatively ubiquitous, people gradually switched over because there was no longer any reason to suffer the inherent inadequacy of table-based layouts.Once you learn the syntax and the basics of how the box model works, CSS makes everything faster, easier, and more precise. By all accounts, it's the standard for web design nowadays.I think the proof is in the pudding though; csszengarden.com is a shining example of the benefits of CSS. Surf there, and you can select different stylesheets to be applied to the page. Same HTML, different CSS, hundreds of designs.alistapart.com is a great resource for discussion on the benefits of web standards and how to apply them. quirksmode.org has technical tips, and w3cshools.com has quick descriptions and examples of most almost everything web-design related.