Douglas Crockford on the DOM
Via the Web Standards Project: Three videos by Douglas Crockford giving some theory on the Document Object Model and how different browsers handle it.
It’s a dry presentation. Like the Sahara. Like twice-burnt toast. Like wind in the desert. I think this was an in-house video for Yahoo! developers, and in that context, I can see why the presentation is a little bit yawn-inducing. But they’re good because of the historical and theoretical background.
Interesting tidbit from the first video: the text/javascript — used by most browsers — is not the official MIME type for JavaScript. The official type is application/javascript. Crockford suggests avoiding the whole proper MIME type issue by using external JavaScript files.
There are quite a few good bits of information in each video about practical JavaScript and Document Object Model scripting, cross-browser differences, and the nuances of HTML. Slides from the presentation are also available.
You may also want to check out the “Advanced JavaScript” videos:
- Douglas Crockford: “Advanced JavaScript” (1 of 3) (31 minutes)
- Douglas Crockford: “Advanced JavaScript” (2 of 3) (26 minutes)
- Douglas Crockford: “Advanced JavaScript” (3 of 3) (11 minutes)