An Ode to Javascript

The language that made the machine talk to us

Welcome to our little treasure grove stuffed with scripted gems, developed and designed to utilize the power of Javascript to its full potential, while at the time degrading nicely and errorfree on machines where Javascript has been restricted or just disabled. Has it ever been different? It may seem the interest of nerds and other rabble, but Javascript is known to run mission critical functions at computers controlling power plants, and it won‘t be long until you add an onmouseover event handler to your correspondence. The list of Reserved Javascript Words is a clear illustration of the mutual approach of human language and computer code. We ‘re talking to the machine in a vocabulary somewhere between our own and the bits and bytes, and why not? Computers are made by humans.

What ’s in a language?

Development of online technologies is expected to remain violent for the forseeable future, but it seems that since its introduction Javascript has kept the closest connection between the source and the experience, the author and the user. Applets, Flash, vectors all attempt to bring the content to life, but kill it in the process. Creating such programs requires very specific knowledge and tools, software that costs money, and search engine bots can‘t or won‘t index them!

The web to be accessible, must be a text-based web. There is a place for binary files, plugins and multicultimedia, but in the end the communication is between humans. Human code is readable code. Javascript is usually slower in operation than most alternative options, but this is easy to forgive and understand. It is downloaded as uncompressed as this very text, and all interpretation of the code statements, the setting of the actual switches, is left to the final stage. Once set, the possibilities of interaction with the page, the browser and the user are endless.

Javascript brings life to existing content, to raw text and HTML that every entity—from braille reader to search engine bot—has access to, without taking anything away. It is the natural extension. However, as all good things, it can be abused and misused, and mistakes are easily misunderstood, and sometimes lead to great frustration on the world wide wasp nest, the end user perspective must prevail, the aim must be clearly articulated and caution is advised. Integrity adds beauty to numbers and scripts alike.

Some scripts

These pages offer a few scripts which may help combine the useful with the inevitable. They are not all the libraries or factories or cut-and-paste scripts found at other sites, but perhaps a mixture trying some concepts and sparkling some ideas about solution-orientated coding. The eye of the beholder is teased and tested.

With the standards dom interface and methods as specified by the W3 Consortium, to make the scripts work in as many known and unknown browsers on as many platforms out there as possible, but open to more efficient alternatives where available, and a clear separation of look, feel and content, yet without losing grip. Practical reasons and unmodest wishes may sometimes dictate the use of a browser specific functionality, such as text selections, which are in no way standardized. The possibilities are much more interesting than the impossibilities.

• But in haste,
• Cut and paste.

Reference

Putting it in context.

• news:comp.lang.javascript - the expert Javascript newsgroup
• http://jibbering.com/faq - the comp.lang.javascript faq
• www.ecma-international.org/publications/standards/Ecma-262.htm the standard
• MSDN - Microsoft‘s DHTML Reference
• Javascript 1.5 - Gecko DOM Reference