Brainspill

Note to self, PPK does this better than I do. Did. It’s !Spiffy! Thanks PPK!

JavaScript Triggers: A List Apart

Once upon a time I created an app for work that utilized Internet Explorer’s pathetic “Behavior” system. I’ve wanted to rewrite it ever since it became obvious with real data, that its performance was awful.

The flaws are that the behavior file is downloaded (or reparsed or something) from memory for every element it applies to. The result is a thousand little hour-glass flashes as the page loads – not to mention even slower load time than usual.

What makes PPK’s solution great is that:

1. It doesn’t use the behavior crap I tried with IE,
2. That makes it cross-browser compatible and I can finally push to get rid of that stupid browser at work,
3. Modifying the DTD would work wonderfully on our site, making the code clean, the css clean, and the javascript self-contained and clean, and
4. It continues the notion of custom attributes I’ve been using in tags for quite a while with JS, but shows me how to do it with the DOM so it’s cross browser happy (and tested) instead of my “hrmm, works in this browser” justification.

Personally, I don’t care that W3C Validation fails on it. It’s a tool, not a requirement.

I test in old browsers. Browsers so old there’s no expectation I’ll ever receive a visit from one.

At present, here’s a sampling of popular browser statistics:

IE 6	65.5%
IE 5	4.4%
O 7	1.9%
Ffox	19.2%
Moz	4.0%
NN 4	0.3%
NN 7	1.1%

(These stats were leeched from w3schools.com, since they get more traffic than I do, I’m sure)

IE4 and IE3 don’t even make the list. So why test in them? Easy: I’m obsessive/compulsive. And curious.

While I don’t care whatsoever if IE3/4/5 don’t get the visual goodies on a cool, simple, clean, wysiwyg editor, I do care if I’m writing sloppy JavaScript code. So I reported an error on that page that occurs in IE4, just to be thorough.

If it’s an easy fix, great: The Man In Blue can claim it’s backwards compatible all the way back through IE3.
If it’s not an easy fix, who cares? Nobody uses that browser anyway.

But still, I’d want to know about the error. Unlikely, it’s still possible some legacy software somewhere has an old imbedded component in it that would break on my code. If I can avoid that with minimal care, I’ll do it.

So to those who give crap to testing in old browsers: Go right ahead. I don’t mind.
But as I see it, professionalism incorporates at least looking at the extra mile, if not going there.

Forget that iRiver device I mentioned. This one’s cooler (no, not the iPod Shuffle).

I wondered why, when the iPod Shuffle came out, people were excited about a sub-par piece of equipment with fewer features and a higher price than existing devices had. Seems I wasn’t alone – I just didn’t recognize the best alternative.

iPod Shuffle vs Sandisk MP3 @ Dave’s iPAQ

I’ve never been a big fan of Apple – seems all they’ve ever wanted to do is limit your options on a thing, then tell you how much that simplifies your life. But this is brazen cashing in on a past success with an crappy succesor.