Thomas 'PointedEars' Lahn wrote:
Grant Wagner wrote:
kaeli wrote: And get away from IE proprietary document.all syntax, which is AFAIU even
deprecated in IE6.
I'd re-word that as "experience d JavaScript authors in this newsgroup (and
hopefully elsewhere) recommend against using the document.all collection
to access any DOM element".
Oh, so I am not an "experience d JavaScript author" IYHO, thank you.
Be very careful with generalization.
Again, you are being intentionally obtuse. It is entirely obvious one can not
argue against using document.all to access a DOM element where that is the only
mechanism by which to access DOM elements.
I understand now I need to have written: "experience d JavaScript authors in this
newsgroup (and hopefully elsewhere) recommend against using the document.all
collection to access any DOM element where an alternate W3C compliant mechanism
to achieve the same result is available within the user agent environment
because using document.all is a proprietary way of doing this and it would be
better to use a more standards-compliant way for future compatibility and this
is only as long and run on as it is because Thomas Lahn enjoys being
intentionally obtuse and refuses to fill in the unspoken but obvious fact that
one can not reasonably argue against not using document.all when it is the only
mechanism available to the author of the client-side JavaScript running in the
particular user agent and I hope this explains it clearly enough this time".
Hopefully the above is much clearer to you, although with sufficient motivation,
I am sure you can take exception with most of what I have written above, and
given your past behaviour, you appear particularly motivated to take exception
with pretty much anything anyone says.
This is because unfortunately Microsoft's document does not show
document.all as being deprecated.
And support for users with browsers who don't know anything else should be
dropped IYHO? Remember our NN4 discussion lately[1]? I did not recommend
against trying with document.layers although NN4 is clearly deprecated by
Netscape, just wanted to have it given the least possible priority.
Deprecation of the collection does not mean that support for the collection
would be _removed_ from either past, current or even future versions. To quote
from dictionary.com:
dep·re·cate:
1. To express disapproval of; deplore.
2. To belittle; depreciate.
And m-w.com:
dep·re·cate:
1 a archaic : to pray against (as an evil) b : to seek to avert <deprecate the
wrath ... of the Roman people -- Tobias Smollett>
2 : to express disapproval of
3 a : PLAY DOWN : make little of <speaks five languages ... but deprecates this
facility -- Time> b : BELITTLE, DISPARAGE <the most reluctantly admired and
least easily deprecated of ... novelists -- New Yorker>
And whatis.com:
deprecate:
In computer programming, a deprecated language entity is one that is tolerated
or supported but not recommended. For example, a number of elements and
attributes are deprecated in HTML 4.0, meaning that other means of accomplishing
the task are preferred. Deprecated features may become obsolete in future
versions of HTML, though browsers that support the features may continue to
support them.
Note: "to express disapproval of", "supported but not recommended", "other means
of accomplishing the task are preferred".
Microsoft can formally mark document.all as "deprecated " (they have not done
so). This would mean that they "express disapproval of", "support but do not
recommend" and "other means of accomplishing the task are preferred". The
"deprecated feature (document.all) may become obsolete (ie - be removed) in
future versions of their DOM" (to paraphrase the whatis.com definition).
On the other hand, document.layers has _not_ been marked as deprecated, support
for it has been _removed_ from versions of Netscape greater than version 4.xx.
The only way document.layers could be considered "deprecated " would be if it
were still supported in Netscape versions 6 and greater but could potentially
disappear in future versions. Also, use of document.layers is the _only_ means
for controlling any aspect of the Netscape 4.xx DOM as it related to dynamic
content and as such, if you wish to support Netscape 4.xx, support for
document.layers can not be avoided.
document.layers has been obsoleted, not deprecated.
[1] BTW, you really want to refrain from using the HTML composer.
Thank you for the advice. It will be given the consideration it deserves, a
decision will be reached based on that consideration and action will be taken
based on that decision.
Since this is my last reply to these meaningless debates you seem to enjoy
engaging in, I'll get a few things off my chest:
You take exception to a THREE LINE signature. Not only do you take exception to
it, you include 9 lines of USELESS advice about how to prevent a 3 line
signature (if you had checked the headers before providing a link to an Outlook
Express specific solution you would have known it would be of no help). How hard
is it to simply ignore the '--' and two lines that appear after it? Does it not
take significantly more effort to tilt at usenet windmills then to simply ignore
the things that do not fit into your usenet world view? How many resources are
you saving by sending 9 lines of advice about how to avoid a 2 line attribution
to everyone who uses an attribution you disapprove of? Your behaviour, if it
were not so completely insane, would be laughable.
You take exception to the software I chose to use to post to this usenet group
although it generates posts which are in compliance with usenet standards - else
the posts would not appear or propagate. The software I choose to use affects
you in NO WAY WHATSOEVER. It seems self-evident that if '--' appears near the
bottom of a usenet post and the first thing on the next line is a person's name,
everything thereafter is a signature. If your software does not indicate it as
such, perhaps you could use your brain and adjust your reading patterns to stop
reading at the point where you realize the rest of the post is a signature. This
is much the same way it is necessary for me to mentally skip the first couple
paragraphs of your posts where you typical rant about attributions and such.
You are intentially obtuse and demand _every_ _single_ _concept_ _and_ _idea_
_be_ _spelled_ _out_ _down_ _to_ _the_ _last_ _l_e_t_t_e_r_. Anything that goes
unwritten or assumed is an invitation for you to deliberately misunderstand and
find fault with.
Quite frankly, it's exhausting. And although you are an intelligent person, and
have many useful ideas to contribute, you have worn me out with your constant
and deliberate misunderstandin gs and attempts to change others' behaviour in
ways that simply do not matter.
I wanted to avoid being kill filed so as to avoid duplicate replies to questions
(since you would no longer be able to see my reply pointing a poster to the FAQ
for example), but now I simply no longer care.
--
Grant Wagner <gw*****@agrico reunited.com>
comp.lang.javas cript FAQ -
http://jibbering.com/faq 
