Re: css layout should be symmetrical

Jesse McCarthy <mccarthy36@earthlink.net> wrote:
> 
>  Ian, for future reference: you will look less foolish if
> you don't mention that you are an "Invited Expert" when
> posting something like this, or better yet if you don't
> post something like it at all.  Several people have already
> explained this to you, something you would have known in
> the first place if you were an expert.

Thanks to the people who pointed out where the spec said that table display 
types shouldn't be used in HTML.

For the record, that section of the spec has been rewritten. It now reads:

#   User agents may ignore these 'display' property values for HTML table
#   elements, since HTML tables may be rendered using other algorithms intended
#   for backwards compatible rendering.

As the errata says, the intention was that a UA may refuse to render an HTML 
table as anything else than a table. The sentence was not meant to discourage 
the use of 'display: table' on other, non-table elements in HTML.

So please people. Go out and use the table display types in HTML. There is 
nothing wrong with doing so. What is wrong is using the HTML table elements for 
non-tabular data, an all-too-common technique.

-- 
Ian Hickson
``The inability of a user agent to implement part of this specification due to
the limitations of a particular device (e.g., non interactive user agents will
probably not implement dynamic pseudo-classes because they make no sense
without interactivity) does not imply non-conformance.'' -- Selectors, Sec13

Received on Saturday, 6 April 2002 12:34:47 UTC