This morning, I formatted an email newsletter for Nuci's Space. Because most web-based email services don't support modern web standards in their preview windows, one must resort to old table-based layout to insure that your message has the best chance to be seen.

First, I thought I'd seen the last of the font tag, nested tables and other ugly format hacks when we adopted a web standards based approach at Plexus back in 2004 (Definitely, the first Athens, Georgia web development firm to adopt this approach). Unfortunately, until web-based email stops stripping inline styles we'll still have to delve into the dark underworld of table hacking to reach the most possible email subscribers.

Secondly, it made me appreciate modern CSS and XHTML methods. Not only do you produce lighter, cleaner files that are portable across mediums and platforms, it's much easier for me or anyone to maintain those files at a later date. Also, there are many SEO (search engine optimization) benefits as well.

I guess this is the way Adam feels when he has to get back into an old .NET, ASP or PHP project after working in the simplified, logical develoment framework that is Ruby on Rails ;)