Tables might make some sense on the level of linear, single-channel thinking but that's pretty much the only benefit. Even then, the people who'd most obviously choose to tables are doing so through a WYSIWYG.

The deprecated use of the the table family of tags is flawed on every level besides simply SEO. Flexibility, extensibility & accessibility all suffer.

Despite table-based design having the small benefit of having a reasonably intuitive build-structure, they're a huge pain to add/edit/modify. Extensibility? Deciding on table-based design is actively choosing to go down an archaic path. Table-based design promotes a dirty mix of content & deprecated html tags used to modify visual/look feel. That means your markup is all mucked up with unnecessary garbage and pulling down the pure content later on for some sort of redesign will be ever-more difficult.

I believe in the pure separation of markup (HTML) and CSS. Design and information should be live apart.

Now on the level of accessibility, text readers and devices aside from your standard web browser pretty much throw fits when you're using tables, simply put. This is something web designers really need to be more considerate of. We're designing not just for screen resolutions, but we should also consider mobile devices, text readers and also create print style sheets.

All things considered, do we always have time to build our sites in a scalable manner so that one day we know we can scrap the CSS and not worry about it? Do we know if our markup can standalone and survive a back-end re-platform? Do we really have the time and budget to consider mobile devices, text readers and printing? Seldom, if ever. However, I'd rather do it safe and do it right the first time around.

Leave tables to email newsletters.

Tables might make some sense on the level of linear, single-channel thinking but that's pretty much the only benefit. Even then, the people who'd most obviously choose to tables are doing so through a WYSIWYG.

The deprecated use of the the table family of tags is flawed on every level besides simply SEO. Flexibility, extensibility & accessibility all suffer.

Despite table-based design having the small benefit of having a reasonably intuitive build-structure, they're a huge pain to add/edit/modify. Extensibility? Deciding on table-based design is actively choosing to go down an archaic path. Table-based design promotes a dirty mix of content & deprecated html tags used to modify visual/look feel. That means your markup is all mucked up with unnecessary garbage and pulling down the pure content later on for some sort of redesign will be ever-more difficult.

I believe in the pure separation of markup (HTML) and CSS. Design and information should be live apart.

Now on the level of accessibility, text readers and devices aside from your standard web browser pretty much throw fits when you're using tables, simply put. This is something web designers really need to be more considerate of. We're designing not just for screen resolutions, but we should also consider mobile devices, text readers and also create print style sheets.

All things considered, do we always have time to build our sites in a scalable manner so that one day we know we can scrap the CSS and not worry about it? Do we know if our markup can standalone and survive a back-end re-platform? Do we really have the time and budget to consider mobile devices, text readers and printing? Seldom, if ever. However, I'd rather do it safe and do it right the first time around.

Leave tables to email newsletters.