Browser Rendering - Getting Computed Style is Hard

14 Aug 2011

Recently I was looking into how libraries like jQuery get the compute style of an element. I found that in its simplest form, getting computed style is one step:

function getStyle(el, prop) {
	return el.currentStyle ?
		el.currentStyle[prop] : // IE
		document.defaultView.getComputedStyle(el, "")[prop];
}

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Caution For JavaScript Global Variables

12 Aug 2011

Recently on Twitter Thomas Aylott (@SubtleGradient) recommended using `location` instead of `window.location`. I disagree. Yes, `location` is a global variable, but the problem is that it can be easily overwritten. A careless dev might use a global variable `location`. The same goes for `window.top`, `window.parent`, `window.self`, and `window.history`. Basically I say use `window.` for anything that could be a common variable name.

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Extending Host Objects: Evil; Extending Native Objects: Not Evil But Risky

8 Aug 2011

Kangax has a good article on extending JavaScript native objects and host objects. He begins by clarifying that extending host objects (e.g. Element) is truly evil. Host objects do not have strong specs and have no rules and extending them risks collisions. Kangax has an older post talking about extending objects. There he says that Prototype JS's biggest mistake was extending Element.

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5 Common Ways to Abuse jQuery

10 Nov 2010

jQuery is great. It is powerful and quick. But with any power comes abuse. Here are some common ways to jQuery is abused.

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Nodejs File Commands - 1 Minute Tutorial

25 Sep 2010

Check out my article on Nodejs file commands over at utahjs.com, the JavaScript Users Group of Utah.

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How Well Does Your Browser Support HTML5?

20 Aug 2010

Niels Leenheer has created an interesting script to detect browser support for HTML5. Try it here. By HTML5, we mean the new HTML and JavaScript standards that are pushing the web to the next level.

These are results from browsers on my Windows Vista machine:

Scores

Feel free to leave your results in the comments.

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HTML5 Facts and Buzz

30 Jul 2010

What is HTML5 really? Peter Paul Koch concludes that HTML5 means whatever you want it to mean. He quotes Jeff Croft:

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Element Wrappers in JavaScript

8 Apr 2010

Element wrappers are coming. We are going to see more frameworks using wrappers for JavaScript DOM Elements.

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Escape Input and Output

30 Mar 2010

There is a surprising amount of confusion about XSS and SQL injection among the PHP programmers I've worked with. Here are some common ways to do it right and to do it wrong.

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Flash's Über Compatibility

22 Oct 2009

Here is the HTML that Adobe Recommends to embed a flash file:

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