What are the disadvantages of using nested tables?

Question

Please don't tell me I should be using css. I know I should be, but I'm in the middle of a job, so for the moment I've got to stick with tables. Anyway, basically since I am using tables, I was wondering is there any major disadvantage of nesting them. It seems to be much easier to control one smaller area on the page without affecting the rest of it if you put tables inside tables, but does this create other problems?

Answer 1

The general consensus is that using tables causes the browser to do more work (rendering and parsing). Therefore a website consisting of nested tables will render slower than a site designed with positioned divs (css).
In addition it takes additional HTML markup to use a table therefore the page itself will be larger in size so it will take longer for a user to get the page in the first place so it can begin the rendering phase.
Layout changes are also considered more flexible when not using tables because the div(CSS) page layouts are usually divided into sections of functionalty that you can easily place in different places on the page.
However, I think many things that are easy to accomplish using tables is insanely difficult using div's (CSS) and so you have resort to lots of CSS hacks to make things work. Even simple things like getting a footer on a page to stay at the bottom is difficult without tables. I beleive with current browser support and standardization the best approach is to use both tables and div(CSS) as appropriate. I do not beleive in the "Css Purist" approach which means creating pages with tons of hacks and unreadable, hard to understand html just so you can make sure you stick with CSS when a table could have accomplished the task in 6 lines of markup....

Answer 2

I think nested tables are sometimes better than and easier to control than CSS when you have fairly complicated layout where row span and colspan is required. Another instance where I would use table over CSS is when you are displaying columnlar datas. I know you can create CSS table, but simple nested table will do the job faster and neater. The only disavange I think it code resuing. With CSS, you can change appearance of the entire site just by modifying the CSS definition. It is not so easy with table. However, table can do better when it comes to cross-browser compatability issue.

Answer 3

The "disadvantage" can be the time for the browser to load and show the data.
Most times people are not using all code to construct the table, in special the sizes, tbody, thead.
It needs the full load of code and data so the browser can "start construction". The visitor sees it (sometimes): There is movement on his screen, flickering, .... .
Another "disadvantage can be the "Ratio" between Code and your text, because code is not seen, but need to be transported over the I-Net.

CSS only is not a solution to avoid using tables, only a page-design will help. And tables are part of this.
Mix it.

Answer 4

The main problem with nested tables is that the deeper they are nested the more work the browser has to do to render them. This isn't an issue on modern systems with broadband, but older, slower systems may bog down and your load times could be affected significantly if you nest too deeply.

Answer 5

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Answer 6

there is one big gotcha.

maintaining nested tables is a pain in the ***.


there is also one small gotcha

nested tables end up sending more html to the browser than going with a css solution. if you have tons of data in your tables you may end up with some severe performance degredation

Answer 7

even professionals use tables sometimes. I think that tables are ok. They are just more code, load slower. You need a lot more time to redesign the website if you are not using css at all, that's it i think.

Answer 8

Birds could get in there and lay eggs?