CSS isn't All it's Cracked Up to Be... Yet

I've been hearing/reading a lot of debate about CSS vs. tables layout. Particularly in favor of CSS is the CSS Zen Garden website and book. Both show many wonderful examples of very nicely designed sites, amazingly all done from the same HTML code, but just using a different style sheet.

On the flip side, however, as KillerSite.com's Stefan Mischook points out, to get the layout you want, using CSS, you often need to incorporate "hacks" which don't work on all browsers, namely IE7.

I agree with Stefan that many CSS advocates have a bit of a "holier than thou" attitude in that if you use tables, rather than CSS to create a website, you're just like soooooo 2002. Bottom line is it doesn't really matter how you create the site, as long as it looks good and works (on all recent browsers). Not once has a client of mine complimented me on the coding I did in creating their website.

CSS most definitely has its place — in fact, I use it all the time, mostly for fonts and other things. But, if your site works best using good ol' HTML tables, then don't feel bad using them!