[whatwg] HTML 5 : Misconceptions Documented

[Garrett Smith]

On Wed, Jul 30, 2008 at 1:00 AM, Kristof Zelechovski
<giecrilj at stegny.2a.pl> wrote:
> Form attribute names should take precedence over form control names.  There
> is no ambiguity.
> Both mechanisms belong to Netscape DOM and are deprecated.
> Form property names should take precedence over both.  I do not see much
> value in removing support for legacy code altogether; it looks a bit
> totalitarian to me.

 "Removing support"? Did you try to say that I was asking for an
implementation change, and that you thought that such change was
"totalitarian". Your reaction to whatever I wrote seems quite a bit
off.

> I agree,

With what?

> however, that examples provided should use
> modern wording, whatever that means.

Apparently, even you don't know what you mean.

The examples in any standards doc should not use Implementation
Specific Extensions, even if such code appears to work in 4 browsers.

Garrett

> Chris
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: whatwg-bounces at lists.whatwg.org
> [mailto:whatwg-bounces at lists.whatwg.org] On Behalf Of Garrett Smith
> Sent: Wednesday, July 30, 2008 8:34 AM
> To: whatwg at whatwg.org
> Subject: [whatwg] HTML 5 : Misconceptions Documented
>
> I took a brief look at the WF 2.0 document yesterday and found some
> serious misconceptions and examples of "programming by coincidence."
> These reflect very poorly on html5.
>
> The errors can be found on the link:
> http://www.whatwg.org/specs/web-forms/current-work/#select-check-default
>
> Doc Bugs:
> 1) Treating a a form element as an HTMLCollection.
> 2) The use of - with - to augment the scope chain is not necessary.
> 3) Calling the "elements" HTMLCollection an "array"
>
> (1) The definition of HTMLFormElement does not have a specialized [[Get]]
> for element names (nor should there be, as this is known to be
> problematic). The example in the documetation depends on such behavior.
>
> (2) - with - augments the scope chain with the object. This is completely
> unnecessary here and will create problems if, for example, there is an
> element named "watch". It is a bad practice and I see this influence in the
> popular libraries.
>
> (3) There is no specification for a special [[Get]] for the "elements"
> HTMLCollection as a shortcut to "namedItem", either (though this would not
> seem to be a problem, and all implementations have supported this behavior
> for quite a long time). I did notice that the elements collection is
> mistakenly called an 'array'. This is a serious documentation mistake of
> the worst kind: The spreading of misinformation. It will continue influence
> the muddy knowledge that is so common among most developers who tend want
> to call "push" et c directly on that NodeList object (see the
> "dojo.NodeList" for details). The elements Collection should be called an
> HTMLCollection and this should be changed immediately.
>
> // WRONG
> document.forms[0].qty,
>
> The "elements" property is what the example should use:-
>
> // RIGHT.
> document.forms[0].elements.namedItem('qty');
> document.forms[0].elements.qty; // Access via custom get
>
> This avoids ambiguity when having a form that has an element named "name",
> for example. It becomes ambiguous as to whether the "form.name" refers to
> the element or the form's "name" attribute. Problems could also arise with
> "action", "length", "toString", "elements".
>
> -------------------------------------------------
> // (GS) Don't augment scope chain here.
> with (document.forms[0]) {
>
> // (GS) Don't treat a form as a collection.
> // Use the 'elements' colletion.
>  if (qty.validity.valueMissing) {
>    // the quantity control is required but not filled in
>  } else if (qty.validity.typeMismatch) {
>    // the quantity control is filled in, but it is not a number
>  }
> }
>
> And further down:-
>
> // (GS) Don't treat a form as a collection.
> // Use the 'elements' colletion.
> var myControl = document.forms[0].addr;
>
> if (myControl.value == 'a at b.c') {
>  myControl.setCustomValidity('You must enter your real address.');
> }
> -------------------------------------------------
> Fixed:
>
> var f = document.forms[0],
>    qv = f.elements.namedItem('qty').validity;
>
>  if (qv.valueMissing) {
>    // Value required but not filled in.
>  } else if (qv.typeMismatch) {
>    // Value filled in, but it is not a number.
>  }
> }
>
> var addErrInvalidMsg = 'You must enter your real address.';
> var addr = document.forms[0].elements.namedItem('addr');
> if (addr.value === 'a at b.c') {
>  addr.setCustomValidity(addErrInvalidMsg);
> }
>
>