Question

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Why not use tables for layout in HTML?

I’ve always heard that using tables for layout was a BIG NO NO. To my understanding, you were supposed to use div's and span's for layout.

I’ve been working on a site recently that has a lot of information that is directly side-by-side. Div's take up an entire line. Setting them to do otherwise in the CSS is annoying. If it is this hard to support, are div's actually made for this?

Tables just seem like the overall solution for it all. What are the downsides of using Tables vs. div's and span's?

For instance, I used tables to layout this here:

Answer 1

Tables should be used to display tabulair data. For other cases, use div‘s and span‘s.

"has a lot of information that is directly side-by-side." sounds like tabulair data. I won’t punish you for using tables in this case.
EDIT
You’ve just edited your answer, and included your lay-out. Don’t use tables!

For readability, your code should look like this:

<div class="cart">
    <div class="price"></div>
    <div class="quantity"></div>
    <div class="pay"></div>
</div>

Compare that lay-out to:
    <table>...<tr><td></td>....</table>

When one views the source of the first lay-out, he can get meaningful information from it. When viewing the source of the second option, on the other hand…

EDIT2 – Layout example

When creating a dynamic webshop, you should also take users who have disabled JavaScript into account. See Fiddle: http://jsfiddle.net/GRgkz/1/

I have created one <form> container element, in case the user has disabled JavaScript. Inside the form, I’ve added the lay-out. See the fiddle for the application logic.