jQuery 1.4.2 buggy
in [JavaScript]
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From: Hans-Georg Michna on 18 Mar 2010 18:59 I just replaced an older version of jQuery with 1.4.2, which promptly broke the page where it was used ( http://winhlp.com/wxnet.htm ). In this case it was apparently not a browser incompatibility, but an outright defect---the .contents() method, which worked well in the earlier version, now produces nonsense. Had to rewrite the affected part of the code in pure JavaScript, and the whole story showed both the weakness and the strength of jQuery. The pure JavaScript code is much longer and much harder to understand than the jQuery one-liner it replaced. I wish we could have a version of jQuery that worked well. There is obviously a market for that. This made me think about jQuery's basic method of always wrapping a DOM element array. I think that's clever, because you can always get the element itself by merely adding an index expression. On the other hand it may be worth a thought to have an extra wrapper for a single DOM element. I think it would be even nicer if the jQuery object shadowed all DOM properties and methods as well, perhaps just for the single-element instance. It seems pretty obvious why particularly beginners like jQuery. Its way to express DOM manipulations is, no doubt, elegant and easy to understand. Its inefficiency doesn't concern the beginner at first. I think it is time to write a new version of jQuery, a competing product whose functional expressions are at least as elegant as jQuery's, but which is leaner and works better. Good documentation would also help. jQuery's is too superficial and imprecise. But at the rate jQuery is adopted and spreading that is unlikely to happen. Hans-Georg
From: Andrew Poulos on 18 Mar 2010 20:26 On 19/03/2010 9:59 AM, Hans-Georg Michna wrote: > I think it is time to write a new version of jQuery, a competing > product whose functional expressions are at least as elegant as > jQuery's, but which is leaner and works better. Good > documentation would also help. jQuery's is too superficial and > imprecise. David Mark has a superior "product" called My Library <url: http://www.cinsoft.net/mylib.html > Andrew Poulos
From: RobG on 18 Mar 2010 23:45 On Mar 19, 8:59 am, Hans-Georg Michna <hans- georgNoEmailPle...(a)michna.com> wrote: > I just replaced an older version of jQuery with 1.4.2, which > promptly broke the page where it was used (http://winhlp.com/wxnet.htm). > > In this case it was apparently not a browser incompatibility, > but an outright defect---the .contents() method, which worked > well in the earlier version, now produces nonsense. Which indicates that their regression testing is faulty. > Had to rewrite the affected part of the code in pure JavaScript, > and the whole story showed both the weakness and the strength of > jQuery. The pure JavaScript code is much longer and much harder > to understand than the jQuery one-liner it replaced. But you should be comparing your function to the underlying jQuery code, not the code that calls it. Did you try to fix it? If you would like help with the code you wrote, post it along with a brief statement of what you want it to do and you might find it can be written more clearly and concisely. I doubt you will have anything as convoluted and difficult to follow as the jQuery code it replaces. According to the documentation: | Given a jQuery object that represents a set of DOM elements, | the .contents() method allows us to search through the | immediate children of these elements in the DOM tree and | construct a new jQuery object from the matching elements. | The .contents() and .children() methods are similar, except | that the former includes text nodes as well as HTML elements | in the resulting jQuery object. That doesn't sound particularly difficult to me. All HTML elements implementing the Node interface have a childNodes property that is a collection of its children, so you can simply create an array of the children of the elements you want in the array. The same function could filter out unwanted nodes. > I wish we could have a version of jQuery that worked well. Now that has gotta be a giant red rag to the David Mark bull! > is obviously a market for that. > > This made me think about jQuery's basic method of always > wrapping a DOM element array. I think that's clever, because you > can always get the element itself by merely adding an index > expression. On the other hand it may be worth a thought to have > an extra wrapper for a single DOM element. I think you should be posting on the jQuery forum. [...] > I think it is time to write a new version of jQuery, a competing > product whose functional expressions are at least as elegant as > jQuery's, but which is leaner and works better. Good > documentation would also help. jQuery's is too superficial and > imprecise. > > But at the rate jQuery is adopted and spreading that is unlikely > to happen. jQuery has a while to run yet, but it will be replaced in time. The last of those horrendous MM_ scripts seem to have finally died out, it too nearly a decade. Hopefully jQuery will either become the library it should have been (doubtful, given its history), or be replaced by something better. -- Rob
From: Peter Michaux on 19 Mar 2010 00:23 On Mar 18, 9:45 pm, RobG <rg...(a)iinet.net.au> wrote: > The last of those horrendous MM_ scripts seem to have finally died out Dream on! ;-) Peter
From: Jonathan Fine on 19 Mar 2010 09:14
Andrew Poulos wrote: > On 19/03/2010 9:59 AM, Hans-Georg Michna wrote: > >> I think it is time to write a new version of jQuery, a competing >> product whose functional expressions are at least as elegant as >> jQuery's, but which is leaner and works better. Good >> documentation would also help. jQuery's is too superficial and >> imprecise. > > David Mark has a superior "product" called My Library > <url: http://www.cinsoft.net/mylib.html > I'm delighted to see that it is now available open source. (Maybe not news to this group, but news to me.) -- Jonathan |