HTML: What is this I hear about the table tag being deprecated?

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HTML: What is this I hear about the table tag being deprecated?

Because that might mess me up, somewhat. I'm not entirely clear on what I'm supposed to use to replicate some of its functionality effectively, should I adopt a newer standard down the road.

I can't seem to find good information sources to verify this, though. Would there be a good reason for this?

+3 A:

table tag isn't deprecated (you can look at the html spec). What you've heard of is probably tableless layouts, because tables should not be used for positioning elements on the page.

zalew 2010-07-05 02:08:44

The link resolved the key part of what made up my assumption. Thanks.

Hamster 2010-07-05 02:32:01

+1 A:

I haven't heard this. I feel I would have with my recent stretch of web conferences.

I will say tables should not be used for layout, strictly tabular data. It's the new semantic web. Maybe that's what you heard.

Jason McCreary 2010-07-05 02:09:45

+6 A:

The <table> tag is most certainly not deprecated. The thing is, you must (well, should) only use it for tabular data. It was and sometimes still is being abused for layout purposes, which is extremely bad practice for a variety of reasons, and CSS is the preferred technology to use there.

deceze 2010-07-05 02:10:13

Makes sense. Is there a function for not using tables to render tabular data, though? I'm still under the impression there's some kind of drawback to using them (performance?)...

Hamster 2010-07-05 02:20:41

tables for tabular data is good... just look at the source code for this SO question.

rockinthesixstring 2010-07-05 02:23:52

@rock Actually, SO is demonstrating exactly what you **shouldn't** do. These questions and answers are not in any way tabular data and tables are purely used for layout purposes here, which is Not Good™.

deceze 2010-07-05 02:27:26

@Hamster Tables can be bad performance-wise in the sense that a table needs to be downloaded in its entirety before it can be displayed. This is not really an issue for modern browsers, fast internet connections and properly constructed tables though, and it should not be the deciding factor of whether to use a table or not.

deceze 2010-07-05 02:30:04

Tables need to be downloaded in full? Well I guess that's not a huge problem.What about when I'm rendering my table dynamically?

Hamster 2010-07-05 02:35:46

@Hamster As I said, moderns browsers are usually intelligent enough to avoid this being a problem, they start rendering tables as soon as possible and re-layout them when necessary. A single table cell usually then becomes the speed limit. Unless you're on a 56k modem though, you usually won't notice a difference anyway. Not quite sure what you mean by "dynamically". Javascript?

deceze 2010-07-05 03:25:35

@deceze, since when are comments in a list NOT tabular?

rockinthesixstring 2010-07-05 03:26:15

@rock They're tabular **in layout only**. They're not by themselves **tabular data**. Are you thinking about comments in terms of rows and columns? Do comments have table headers, column descriptions or row names? Would they make sense in a spreadsheet?

deceze 2010-07-05 03:27:53

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HTML: What is this I hear about the table tag being deprecated?

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