Obituary

We are sad today to note the passing of Tables for Layout.

Tables for Layout was born in David Raggett's late–1993 draft of HTML markup formats. This paper was adapted and adopted into the May, 1996 RFC and, ultimately became a part of the specification for HTML v3.2 in January, of 1997.

Tables for Layout really came into its own with the release of Netscape's Navigator 3 and especially Navigator 4 browsers, along with Microsoft's Internet Explorer, in version 3 and again especially in version 4 release.

Tables for Layout was the tool of choice for professional Web designers and developers throughout the late 1990s and into 2000. As the Web became more commercial, large corporations with sometimes millions of dollars invested in logos, colors and other branding identity had little patience for a Web where they could not control the precise positioning of various elements on a page.

While never designed specifically for Layout (Tables were originally meant only for tabular data), Tables were drafted into the role of constraining various content elements on Web pages with more precision than was otherwise available at the time. Tables seemed especially well-suited to this task by most at the time, and it is conceded by even the most ardent detractors that the Web of today would never have happened without the contribution of Tables for Layout during the second term of the Clinton administration.

These were heady days in the evolution of the Web and of Web design and development, and many tags briefly developed a non-standard usage during this period. Mostly, this practice has fallen away with the appearance of the "Internet Appliance" style of thinking, and the realization that content may now appear in massive monitors or on handheld devices like cell phones or anything in between, or indeed in other media.

Tables for Layout will probably be best remembered for its stubborn tenacity in a role it was never designed to fill, only finally yielding its commanding position to Cascading Stylesheets when the first decade of the twenty-first century drew to a close. Until then, it was storied in Web pages throughout the world detailing Web development technique and in a great many well-considered books on "Good Design Practice". Even many of the popular Web editing environments of the day, NetObjects' Fusion, Microsoft's FrontPage and Macromedia (now Adobe) Dreamweaver, supported and celebrated Tables for Layout for a number of years.

Ultimately, the evolution of the very standards that gave rise to Tables for Layout served to weaken and finally kill it. The rise of Cascading Stylesheets and the improved support of popular Web browsers gave designers even more control, and at lower cost, than Tables for Layout could ever provide. As fidelity to the Designer's idea became more and more important, Tables for Layout simply could no longer compete in an area it was never designed to work in.

Tables for Layout is preceded in death by the <blink> tag and spacer .gif, and is survived by the <font> tag, the serial <br /> tag and the empty <p>

pairing, both still in wide use for visual alignment. Visitation is available at any little-maintained Web site from the middle-late 1990s, or sites for firms with little or no Web budget. The family has asked that, in lieu of flowers, donations be made to the WorldWide Web Consortium in support of their HTML and CSS validators, and ask that friends of Tables for Layout finally spend a few moments in quiet meditation with Eric Meyer's excellent CSS: The Definitive Guide.