Re: Is document.<formName>.<fieldName>.value DOM-1 compliant

>Hmm, do you have a DOM-0 spec that shows that it's
>not just some implementation-specific thingie?  :-)

"DOM Level 0" is an informal term used by the DOM working group as a
shorthand for "The nonstandard APIs that the W3C DOM set out to
standardize."  So yes, it's really those "implementation-specific thingies"
that happened to work semi-reliably in some of the most popular browsers.

(There has been some discussion of  going back and trying to figure out
just what subset of those APIs really were common enough to represent a de
facto standard, to aid those who have no choice but to interface with those
older systems. The DOM Working Group really doesn't have the spare cycles
to do this, but several other committies have suggested they might look at
it, and if they do I expect we'll review their work.)

>I think it's EXTREMELY unwise to rely on anything
>that can only claim to be a legacy.  Use DOM L1
>functionality wherever possible.

Absolutely. The legacy calls should be considered nonportable. If you
really want to write a page that will be viewable only with specific
browsers, and not necessarily with future versions of those browsers... Ask
yourself whether that's really a good idea.


______________________________________
Joe Kesselman  / IBM Research

Received on Thursday, 9 November 2000 09:07:27 UTC