John Doe wrote:
The IE DOM is very nicely packaged for perusal at msdn. Is there a
website with a similarly user-friendly object-oriented construction for
the W3C DOM/CSS/ECMAScript Specs?
"Similar" in terms of layout, no. But superior in terms of
conformance with standards, yes (links below).
I prefer the W3C site, you can download your own copy of the
specs and once you understand how they are set out, they are
easier to use than the MSDN site. With MSDN, I often end up
totally lost.
One of the most useful features of the W3C HTML spec is the
indexes of Elements and Attributes links at the bottom of the
TOC. It cross references everything on one page, so your
searches are not of a web site but just within a page - faster
than MSDN (and to me, easier to use).
Other issues with MSDN:
- Constant encouragement to use MS tools and proprietary
components when not required. Sure, they're a business but I
like to know when I'm writing MS-only code or binding myself
to MS's development or deployment platforms.
- they do not clearly differentiate between IE proprietary
and W3C compliant content, though there is a section that
details ECMA compliant and non-compliant parts of JScript
- sections like: "Summary of Browser Detection Techniques
(Professional ASP Techniques for Webmasters)" that appear
to promote bad programming practice (and take cheap shots at
other browsers)
- Editorial comment posing as fact: "Because Netscape believe
that they invented browsers..."
<URL:http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/dnproweb/html/summaryofbrowserdetectiontechniques.asp>
- Really long URLs to resources... :-)
HTML 4:
<URL:http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/>
DOM 3:
<URL:http://www.w3.org/TR/DOM-Level-3-Core/expanded-toc.html>
DOM 2:
<URL:http://www.w3.org/TR/DOM-Level-2-HTML/expanded-toc.html>
CSS:
<URL:http://www.w3.org/Style/CSS/>
Links to current CSS specs are at the bottom of the page.
--
Rob
