View the HTML source on the pages at most major sites on the Internet, and you'll find one of two things: frames, or tables — lots of tables.
Why? Because both frames and tables enable you to lay out your pages in the way that is becoming almost the de facto presentation scheme of the Web: a title banner at the top of the page, a navigation area on the left, and a main content area in the remaining space of the page. How to Create Elegant HTML follows this emerging standard through the use of frames.
I prefer frames to tables because I find they make coding and maintenance a lot easier, thus letting me focus on developing content. However, frames do have their drawbacks. The greatest of these is that they destroy the "traditional" one-to-one relationship between URL and page content. Tables enable you to keep that relationship, though at the price of messy code. Hey, there are trade-offs with everything. It's up to you how you want to code. All I can do is give you the tools to go either way, then leave the decision up to you.
That said, let's look at Using Tables for Page Layout.