When Is It OK to Use a table HTML Element?

Never, but there’s an exception. If you are displaying tabular data, it’s fine to use.

A quote from CSS-Tricks:

So, when should we use<table>? Actual tabular data, of course! If you need to display a list of baseball scores, statistics or anything else in that vein, <table> is your friend. 

Ryan Grist. 2020. Why Do Some HTML Elements Become Deprecated? (April 2020). Retrieved September 6, 2020

What about using display: table-cell (CSS)?

In the Stackoverflow post titled How (and why) to use display: table-cell (CSS), this is interesting:

“..there is no good reason, and you should probably never do this.”

“In my over a decade of experience in web development, I can’t think of a single time I would have been better served to have a bunch of divs with display styles than to just have table elements.”

https://stackoverflow.com/a/52749835/175956

At CARFAX, we share best practices like this, apply the knowledge gained, and grow together. CARFAX and its members also share knowledge with the community at large.

Do you like challenges? Here’s one: What will you do to share knowledge with others today? If you’re looking for ideas, I have one. Feel free to share this blog post on Twitter or any other social media platform and let me know, please.

Thanks and have a great day!

Learning TypeScript

I’ve been coding for over a decade. Most recently, iOS development for over 5 years. However, before that I did a ton of JavaScript. Even though I’ve been writing iOS code, I haven’t abandoned JavaScript. In fact, I even dived into some sever-side TypeScript and am ready to share how. (Special thanks goes to a mentee of mine, Laquisha. She inspired me to write this short blog post.)

What’s TypeScript, you ask? As stated on the official website:

TypeScript is a typed superset of JavaScript that compiles to plain JavaScript.

typescriptlang.org

Good Resources For Learning TypeScript

For the most up-to-date information, you can’t go wrong by going straight to the official TypeScript website at typescriptlang.org. Warning: As of July 2019, there’s a Quick Start link that isn’t as quick as you might think. What if you just want a taste of the language?

For a quick taste of the language, click on Documentation then Tutorials. In there is a TypeScript in 5 minutes document. Give it a quick scan, install what you need, and try out the code in your favorite editor. A popular editor is the Microsoft Visual Studio IDE and they even provide their own TypeScript tutorial.

If you don’t want to commit to installing anything yet, you can use the popular online editor called CodePen at codepen.io. It supports TypeScript.

Hungry for a video instead of reading? There’s a 2018 video titled Learn TypeScript in 50 Minutes – Tutorial for Beginners. In true community fashion, it’s clear that people are eager to share the benefits of TypeScript.

TypeScript Communities

Communities for TypeScript are usually embedded inside of other larger communities. The best I could find are:

There you go! That’s what TypeScript is about, some resources, and communities to help you on your way. I hope you enjoy your journey into TypeScript!

November 2019 Update: Made changes in the TypeScript Communities section: Added TypeScript Community and Reactiflux. Deleted low activity IRC channel. Reformatted.