>> if it looks good, is fun for you to make (apart from guilt), and does what users want (or will get you there), what's bad about that? Conversely, if it's hard to make, not fun (apart from guilt relief), and doesn't make things look better or work better, what's good about that?
You're tapping into a quite a bit of psychology there :)
I've been thinking about the idea of popularity as a measurement of "goodness" (think PHP vs Python), and I think in the end, the answer depends on the programmer.
Some might like to get things done quickly so that their not-necessarily-geeky idea is off the ground early (which is arguably a strong factor for a technology's popularity), and some might prefer to "invest time" and learn about complicated problems (scalability, for example) as they go along. I'd say things are (as usual) a mix of both extremes, so we need to prioritize what's important to us.
As far as tables vs css goes, I find that tables make layouts easy for the average person to visualize while building it, but css is far easier to maintain (especially when you are responsible for maintaining/revamping 50+ stylesheets per year in sites and apps of varying degrees of complexity - think heavily widgeted layouts)
You're tapping into a quite a bit of psychology there :) I've been thinking about the idea of popularity as a measurement of "goodness" (think PHP vs Python), and I think in the end, the answer depends on the programmer.
Some might like to get things done quickly so that their not-necessarily-geeky idea is off the ground early (which is arguably a strong factor for a technology's popularity), and some might prefer to "invest time" and learn about complicated problems (scalability, for example) as they go along. I'd say things are (as usual) a mix of both extremes, so we need to prioritize what's important to us.
As far as tables vs css goes, I find that tables make layouts easy for the average person to visualize while building it, but css is far easier to maintain (especially when you are responsible for maintaining/revamping 50+ stylesheets per year in sites and apps of varying degrees of complexity - think heavily widgeted layouts)