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Tables first came to be used for displaying tabular (spreadsheet-like) data – which was what it was designed for.

And for that purpose, it's still the best option.

Yes, that's why they're in the spec and is the case where their use is still valid, but that's why I qualified my prior comment.

HN dates from the period I described and still uses tables for general page layout, hence the original commenter's query to which I replied.

> HN dates from the period I described and still uses tables for general page layout

According to Wiki HN dates from 2007. I think Yahoo moved from table to CSS layout earlier. CSS Zen Garden is from around 2003.

All true, but the point at which web dev more generally moved to CSS over tables was considerably later, not least because early CSS was pretty hard to find resources on and work effectively with. Firebug helped a lot from 2005 on, as of course also the browser-native devtools it inspired, but in 2007 it remained far from a surprise to see sites built in what was then still a current, if not the latest, style.

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