Re: missing ) after argument list

Randy Webb <HikksNotAtHome@xxxxxxx> writes:

>> and there is proof that at least one script engine, the JavaScript
>
> The language is Javascript, not JavaScript.

Actually, the official name for the language used by the Netscape
browsers and inheriteed by the Mozilla based browsers, including the
Spidermonkey engine, is "JavaScript". This is also the name that is
trademarked by Sun Microsystems, Inc.

I personally use "Javascript" to refer to the group of languages
derived from JavaScript, including JScript and the ECMAScript
implementations in other browsers, but it's not an official name.

> Irrelevant. Give one browser, just one that produces a syntax error
> with this code:
>
> <script type="text/javascript">
> <!--
>
> //-->
> </script>

Can't find one. It would be stupid for a browser creator to not accept
this, since so many existing pages use it. That's not an argument for
using it, or advocating its use. It's not even an argument against
arguing for its abolishment.

Can you find one browser later than Netscape 2, i.e., one that
understands the script element, that doesn't work without the "syntax
of an HTML comment"?

> And then you might have an argument. Its more Theory vs
> Reality. Theory is that it should be an error, Reality is that no
> browser throws an error with it. Never has and never will for no other
> reason than backwards compatibility.

Correct. And there is no reason not to remove it.

It will be a problem when somebody unknowingly (which is the reason
people use it in the first place) adds XML comments to an XHTML
file, and removes their entire script before it ever reaches the
script interpreter.

> I didn't ask for all "known browsers". I ask for *one* browser that
> throws an error with the above code. Until one is shown to throw an
> error, it is irrelevant what the "specs" say. What is relevant is what
> the browser does with the code.

Are you arguing that standards are irrelevant and that we should just
go by what the browsers do? That validation is irrelevant, as long as
it works in all the current browsers?

> Standards do not come from ECMA and W3C as they should. The standards,
> browser behavior, and what is or is not supported is decided in
> Redmond Washington in the USA.

While IE is a de-facto standard, it is not the only standard. As I see
it, more and more people are writing pages to standards and adding
support for IE afterwards. That is probably why Microsoft admits that
standard support is one of the primary requests for IE 7.

Admittedly, if all browsers supported all standards equally well,
there wouldn't be any compelling reason to choose one over the other,
except the user interface. I can see Microsoft not wanting to compete
that way.

> Considering that the #1 browser on the web doesn't support XHMTL to
> use XHMTL as an argument is ridiculous.

It's not an argument for not using a deprecated practice in HTML
documents, where I agree that it will probably be supported forever,
but for trying to break the habit of the people using it in order
to avoid the problem when they eventually try to write an XHTML page
(especially when it seems to work in IE because it doesn't parse
it as XML).

/L
--
Lasse Reichstein Nielsen - lrn@xxxxxxxxxx
DHTML Death Colors: <URL:http://www.infimum.dk/HTML/rasterTriangleDOM.html>
'Faith without judgement merely degrades the spirit divine.'
.

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