[handy2000]

> I don't think that's accurate. It was old Internet Explorer that wouldn't render tables progressively.

You both agree and disagree with my comment :)

If memory serves me right, I started migrating off table layouts at the time when IE6 was still by far the most popular browser (>80% of the market?).

[wayfinder]

IE had a setting that forced tables to render progressively. They documented it on the Microsoft web dev site and also I’m reasonably sure in their “cool things you can do in IE5.5” book.

[handy2000]

Didn't know that! Wonder what made them choose to turn this off by default. Must be an interesting eng story.

[wayfinder]

I used it and it almost progressively updated too often - like cell by cell, so it wasn’t very pretty. So you kind of had to know when to use it and when not to.

[slapo]

So did I, but at the time, screen resolutions were starting to vary more.

It was probably a case of killing several birds with one stone - make layouts fluid while avoiding IE's issues with rendering tables.