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It's funny to me that one reason why people said to stop using tables was because of file size. Now we have everyone download almost a megabyte (or more) of ja
by bcrosby95 7y ago
It's funny to me that one reason why people said to stop using tables was because of file size. Now we have everyone download almost a megabyte (or more) of javascript to render a few kb of html.
- WorldMaker 7y agoI don't recall page size being a reason. I recall TABLE layouts being a lot smaller than most of their alternatives at the time (FRAMESETs in particular come to mind, because we knew HTTP connection overhead was a thing even back then and needing separate files for each individual website "part" felt like a huge bandwidth waste back then). The big problem was always Accessibility-related semantics. Websites laid out in TABLEs were often quite confusing to screen readers, as TABLE has a lot of supposedly important semantics in how it should be read/engaged with and using a TABLE for layout follows none of them. (What does a table header mean in a layout? Most layouts wouldn't have good headers. How do you describe what a table column is supposed to be for without a column header?) It's a shame that narrative was never clear enough that Accessibility was always the big reason TABLEs were considered a Bad Idea for layout. (Speaking of downloading a megabyte of data, I recall how long I felt that a 1.44 MB floppy was the best restriction for the size of an entire website. If it was bigger than a floppy you were probably doing something wrong. I stopped counting floppies a long time ago; that person might be ashamed at how many floppies a typical website downloads these days.)