How does one learn standards-based scripting?
Published 16 May 2005
I am a little late to this conversation, but there has been some discussion lately about browser elitism, and how CSS may be dipping its toes into waters best reserved for DOM-based scripting.
I can agree with some of these arguments, and I have been trying to find a good way to go about learning DOM-based scripting for several months now. I have to say that it’s very hard to figure out where to start. There are a wealth of great CSS books out there for folks at every level of expertise, as well as more articles and demonstrations than you can shake a stick at, but there is comparatively little good information to be found about scripting. Just look at ALA-- there are 62 CSS articles, as opposed to 26 DOM | Scripting articles. I’m sure this is reflective of a current bias in the web design industry, resulting from the “javascript is evil” days of yore.
On Amazon, I can find only a couple of books that mention the DOM, and they are from several years ago, except for one by Jeremy Keith that is not yet released. I can find some great tools and snippets of code that use it, but it’s unclear how to get started in the right direction. There is a lot of bad information about javascript out there, just like there is a lot of non-standards-based web design information. But there is not as much guidance as to how to use DOM scripting responsibly, best practices, common pitfalls, etc.
So my question to the DOM-scripting gurus is: can you point us newbies to a good way to learn the basics so that we don’t have to learn responsible DOM-scripting by trial and error?
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Commentary
goodwitch writes
May 16 at 03:17 PM #
I’ll point you right to Derek Featherstone boxofchocolates.ca . He just taught a course at Accessibility University on this very topic…and knowing Derek…he will soon share this knowledge via his blog. Unfortunately, I think he is on a plane right now, so he isn’t online to help at the moment!
Chris writes
May 16 at 04:54 PM #
I haven’t read it but a quick google turned up this: [url="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0957921896/qid=1116210774/sr=8-1/ref=sr_8_xs_ap_i1_xgl14/104-8385612-4507911?v=glance&s=books&n=507846" ]DHTML Utopia Modern Web Design Using JavaScript & DOM
by Stuart Langridge[/url] ..which looks promising.
Also [url=http://www.quirksmode.org]http://www.quirksmode.org[/url] is almost a requirement for surviving DOM scripting without loosing your hair.
Andrea writes
May 16 at 06:25 PM #
Chris: What’s google?
Seriously, don’t know how I missed that book—it does look promising. And I should have mentioned quirksmode—I did know about that one. I don’t think I’ve ever gone in through the front door though. There does seem to be some basic concept stuff that I hadn’t seen before, that is the kind of thing I’m looking for. Thanks!
goodwitch: I had read the description of his class before I posted, and I must say I’m jealous that Accessibility University happened in your hometown! I am looking forward to seeing what he writes.
Paul writes
May 17 at 11:06 AM #
For the best info on CSS, DOM, etc. visit The Web Standards Project. The site is maintained by Jeffrey Zeldman who also has a book on the same topic (http://www.zeldman.com/dwws/).
Andrea writes
May 17 at 01:25 PM #
Thanks Paul! I’m a frequenter of the WaSP site, and devoured DWWS in about a weekend when it came out. The WaSP site’s resources seem a bit behind the times, though—they are putting their energy into other areas.