Tables work just fine too

Yes I know Julian, just wanted to get everyone else's views on it.

While the subject of hacks has come up, What do you all think of the usage of hacks to make things work correctly?

Personally I think that if you need a hack to complete a coding job then there must have been something done wrong that shouldn't be there in the first place. Anyone in the same boat?

well no, .png hacks are simply to counter IE's dismal attempt at creating a browser .

Originally Posted by Julian But we can even create tableless data tables now, so why code tables at all?

Because proper coding is about semantics, not a tableless "status".

A paragraph should have a p tag, an address should have the address tag, a list should use the list tag and tabular data should use a table.

Using div's to render tabular data is semantically as bad as laying out an entire page using a table.

About hacks, I've never EVER used one in my own coding (to my knowledge) and never had a problem with cross-browser capabilities. It's not hard to do.

I would have to see a definition of "hack". The term is used so broadly it practically has no meaning.

Some people consider a hack to be anything that is not semantically correct. In which case almost everyone hacks because 100% semantic pages are very rare (I don't even code them that way myself all the time, unfortunately).

Other people only consider it a hack if you can't write one style that works in all browsers. Unfortunately again, it's almost impossible to code this way without violating the semantic hack definition due to the fact IE does not support all w3c standards.

The bottom line is, if your page works in IE then chances are you've hacked by some definition or another.

I personally thinkthat the future is xHTML and CSS in a tableless code. I also think that people need to take into consideration different browsers, especially mobile ones which are becoming moreand more popular.

On the subject of "Div-Soup" I understand how people get into that area when starting out, and I think that it's acceptable in the beginner stages. But as a professional coder that is charging a high rate, they should really know what they are doing.

Originally Posted by jjmac The bottom line is, if your page works in IE then chances are you've hacked by some definition or another.

Agreed. To get most designs working in all main browsers, 'hacks' are essential. I don't like the term hack anyway, it sounds dirty when if the pges are working fine and they validate I see it as a God send as the browsers are so conflicting it's unreal.

At least we have past the days of "IE users click here" "Netscpe users click here" "best view in 800x600 WOW! display" and all that crap.

are hacks essential now? with conditional statments I thought you could work around that. I have used plenty of hacks before to force IE 5, 5.5, 6, etc to work but I have moved over to conditional statments now. Which creates an interesting problem, having 5 style sheets for 4 versions of IE and 1 for FF. Then I have a mobile and print style sheet...maybe I should make a Opera one as well...Damn, I think im getting out of control.

Originally Posted by jjmac Because proper coding is about semantics, not a tableless "status". A paragraph should have a p tag, an address should have the address tag, a list should use the list tag and tabular data should use a table. Using div's to render tabular data is semantically as bad as laying out an entire page using a table.

I know Josh, I use tables for tabular data myself, I was just provoking some discussion on the matter

As for the use of hacks, if they have to be changed in the future, for sites to work in newer browsers, then don't use them. I use very minimal hacks, and only for older versions of IE (5.5, 5.01 etc). I do this by using alternative styesheets that are only called up by IE. I don't put them in with my other generic stylesheets. It might only be for little things like padding, fixing the box model in areas etc. One of the best ways to avoid the need for hacks is to use minimal images and be slightly relaxed in requiring pixel perfect layouts.