Tables in conjunction with CSS question

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1

http://danlamanna.com/tables/

Now disregard completely the color scheme, I’m entirely new to developing any type of web layout. Minor background in php/mysql and starting to get into layouts, I’ve always heard tables are being phased out and it’s better to not use them at all. I created that page for myself, to see the issues, I use css for coloring and styling, I use the tables for definitive structure, and percentage use rather than pixels. I tried firefox and IE, both come out fine, they validate, I can change the size of the browser and it works fine, yet I don’t want to be frowned upon for using tables. So the question comes down to why is it inferior, and how can I start eliminating them from my layouts if need be. I also noticed vbulletins default layout is loaded with tables, and they are to my knowledge the most popular bulletin board system out there, which made me question it even more.

Thanks for any input you can provide.

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Tables are for tabular data unsurprisingly not for layout purposes and never have been its only because people abused them before CSS support was readily available that we are still left with that hack.

CSS positioning deals with layout much more efficiently and you have greater control of positioning objects - which you could never achieve with a TABLE. Plus usually far less editing with a CSS file when you want to change a specific object, etc.

As for vbulletin well they are wealthy enough to produce whatever bloated code they want. As they have a huge user base and anyway the main forum structure (public reply part) should probably be a table.