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Comment by GHFigs | Hacker News Reader

CSS does not demand that the markup be ordered that way. That is entirely a product of the author's choice of layout and his chosen method of generating it, which happens to bring his expectation (that floats work like tables) into conflict with the way that floats are specified to work (that floats work like floats).

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You should read my reply to the other guy for a fuller treatment, but here's what I said about this to him, 'perhaps "demand" was hyperbole, but CSS does still push developers to rewrite their HTML when design changes happen.' The cost in flexibility to do it any other way is simply too high. This is sufficiently close to demanding to justify the hyperbole, in my mind.

edit: Furthermore, you speak as if the author is criticizing floats, but he is not. He is criticizing the attitude that tables are to be avoided for layout at all costs, when there simply is not a simple, implemented, cross browser way to replace them. Floats are simple the closest thing we can practically use, so he uses them for comparison.

The author draws a conclusion about CSS in general from an argument that hinges entirely on the use of floats to emulate table-based layout. Ergo, he's criticizing floats for not being tables.

He is criticizing the available subset of CSS of not being tables. As I said, floats are the closest approximation currently on offer. How many times must I repeat it?

Repeat what? Previously you claimed that the author was criticizing an "attitude" and not the way that floats work. Now you're saying he's criticizing the "available subset" which you define as floats.

I don't understand what you're disagreeing with.

Repeat the thing I said right before "How many times must I repeat it?" It's not hard to follow. Here's where I said it before:

> Floats are simple the closest thing we can practically use

Furthermore, I did not define the "available subset" as floats. I'm saying that floats are the best available tool in that available subset for implementing table-like behavior. And yeah, they suck for that purpose, but _there is no better alternative_.

If you still don't understand that, then I'm afraid there's no use in continuing this discussion.

I was clear on what you wrote. I was, and still am, unclear on what you're disagreeing with, i.e. why you wrote it.

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