Did you see the designnewz article?

[carju1]

I was just reading the latest designnewz e-zines and the main artticle is by Azam Corry entitled Frames Vs Tables (In case you don't get the newsletter -shame on you - you can find it here ).

Now those that know me will realise that any article that starts "Some people like to use frames on their sites. I would recommend you avoid them if you can ... and you probably can." is going to set me in a negative mood but I can't help feeling that the thrust of the article is a contradiction.

In the first part Azam says "The left column navigation bar, for example, is one area that it may seem appealing to place in it's own frame. What many people don't realize that you can achieve almost the same result by using an SSI callout in a table cell within the page." Now I don't disagree with this statement and it sounds reasonable until later in the same article he says "Now the thing with tables is that the browser downloads all the contents of the table BEFORE it actually draws anything on the screen." Again I agree with this statement.

The problem therefore is the argument of the article goes something like " Don't use frames they are a problem - use a SSI in a table cell for navigation - Therefore design the major part of every page on your site as a table - Don't use tables they load slow "

Anyone else read it and think the same or am I just being defensive about an article that, without solid grounds and spurious SEO reasoning, dismisses frames.

Julian

p.s. Azam if your on here please feel free to join in and I'd rather have an article to debate than no article at all.

[Narasinha]

Personally, the article seems to me like it comes two years too late. I've always disliked frames-based sites. I thought professional developers already tried to stay away from frames. I thought the new "debate" was Tables vs. CSS for layout.

I do see your point about the "use tables because..." and "don't use tables because..." arguments. Perhaps it doesn't come across clearly enough. I think Azam's point about deeply nested and/or very complicated tables was meant to illustrate the "don't" with table layout. Perhaps he didn't emphasize this strongly enough.