Today, yet more talk about how 2005 is going to be a big year for JavaScript, and in particular for data retrieval
using XMLHttpRequest. At the year of
data retrieval, ppk of the essential site Quirksmode.org talks
about map.search.ch (which turns out not to use XMLHttpRequest after all) and about
the future of JavaScript.
Two things I found interesting here: first, he talks about all of the predecessors of XMLHttpRequest, from image
loading to iframe tricks. Second, he raises the question of terminology and sets his own definitions for "DOM scripts",
which change the structure of a site, "DHTML scripts", which change the presentation (CSS), and "data retrieval
scripts".
I think the question of terminology is far from settled. Both of the "DOM" and "DHTML" scripts he refers to use the
W3C DOM, and both could be called "DHTML" as far as I'm aware—Netscape's classic definition of DHTML was something that
lumped together HTML, JavaScript, CSS, and the DOM, and Microsoft had a slightly different definition.
Now I'm not sure DHTML means anything at all. I'm ready to dump the term altogether—it just confuses people into
thinking it's a standard like XHTML, when really it's a relic of a long-ago Netscape marketing campaign. The fact that
the term DHTML
doesn't appear anywhere on the W3C site should tell us something.
Anyway, at least we know what to call the programming language: JavaScript. Or
JScript. Or
ECMAScript.
1. If we realy want to be nitpicky, let's look at the term DHTML: Dynamic HTML. But, you aren't doing anything to the HTML are you? Only to the DOM! If you follow this reasoning, the only real DHTML happens on the server side!
Anyway, I don't really like the term... it's too old school, perhaps. I'm calling JavaScript JavaScript because that's the most widely used term for it. ECMAScript is fine, too, because it's the standard (and it prevents confusion with Java). JScript is definately a no-go... unless you are talking about Microsoft software specifically.
Posted at 5:49AM on Dec 19th 2005 by Mark Wubben