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Comment by bouncingsoul | Hacker News Reader

It doesn't matter if the logic behind using xhtml+css is flawed: the xhtml+css evangelists have so saturated the development world with their propaganda that I'm worried if I make an educated decision to use html 4.01 or occasional layout tables it will hurt me when potential employers, clients, or even the general webdev community review my code and think I don't know what I'm doing.

Does anyone else feel that way?

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I always opt for HTML 4.01 Strict, just because the way XHTML is deployed on most sites is not actually XHTML, due to the mimetype that's being set. It really exists as badly malformed HTML.

Furthermore, I wouldn't say it's propaganda. In a sense it's somewhat like the difference between functional programming and non-functional programming, i.e there's a difference there in the interest of maintainability.

Yes and No.

It isn't just propaganda anymore. Pure CSS is what you're going to see in almost every code base you might work on. The last several gigs I've had wouldn't even allow tables for tabular data, which I think is ridiculous.

If I were reviewing your code, I'd give you points for using tables to deal with tabular data. I might not even hold it against you if you used it in a layout, depending on context. Unfortunately the person reviewing your markup will probably expect pure CSS, even if it is data displayed in a table format. Adjust your expectations accordingly.

Wow - not allowing tables for tabular data - this just shows how much kool-aid some people have drunk

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