Rough Guide To The DOM (part 2) - Conclusions

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Should you be interested in learning more about the DOM, there are a number of resources available to you online. Here's a brief list:

The official W3C DOM specifications, at http://www.w3.org/DOM/

Mozilla.org developer resources, at http://www.mozilla.org/docs/ and http://www.mozilla.org/docs/web-developer/

DOM sample code at http://www.mozilla.org/docs/dom/samples/

A structural (logical) view of the DOM, at http://www.xml.com/1999/07/dom/xml_dom.gif

An XML introduction to the DOM, at http://www.xml101.com/dom/

And finally, before I go, a final comment. While the new DOM may appear to be far less flexible and easy to use than the proprietary models developers have been used to, the fact remains that it offers one very important advantage: standardization. This DOM has been written in such a manner that every element on a page is finally available to the developer via standard navigation rules, and can be manipulated using standard object methods and properties.

In the short run, it may be difficult - even frustrating - to re-code Web pages as per the new DOM; however, I believe that the effort is well worth putting in, as it immediately ensures that your pages will be viewable across all standards-compliant browsers. It should be noted that much of the confusion in the past (and the resulting profusion of proprietary DOM interfaces) was due to the lack of clear direction from the W3C; now that a DOM specification has been finalized and released, future versions of all the major browsers should support it completely, and we should hopefully see an end to browser incompatibilities that have plagued developers in the past.

Here's hoping!

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