I think banning tables doesn’t go nearly far enough. What we need to do is ban the idea of tabular data altogether.
The concept of tabular data is simply too insidious for the average person to deal with. Inevitably, it causes them to slip into the evil habit of using tables, despite the best efforts of concerned enlightened Netizens. No we must strike at the source.
A good first step would be simply to ban the use of the words “row” or “column” in our educational institutes. Also, lest young impressionable minds stumble on these concepts themselves, desks ought to be layed out in classrooms using a simple computer program that creates a stochastic distributions. Further research needs to be done to determine if that will be sufficient, given that with current teaching methods the desks must all be oriented similarly. Perhaps it will be necessary to also randomize the orientation, which could be achieved by giving each desk a screen and having the teacher teach into a screen.
Clearly much work needs to be done to root out the rows’n’columns heresy that leads to the use of tables. It brings one almost to despair thinking of the enormity of the task.
