[whatwg] Placeholder option for text input boxes

[Maciej Stachowiak]

On Oct 1, 2008, at 10:27 AM, Aaron Boodman wrote:

> On Wed, Oct 1, 2008 at 10:05 AM, Kristof Zelechovski
> <giecrilj at stegny.2a.pl> wrote:
>> Please.  This thread is not abort how to write JavaScript code in  
>> general.
>> It is about how to write the feature detection code.  This kind of  
>> code
>> should be especially robust and relying on deprecated features does  
>> not make
>> it more so.
>
> Ok, let's separate out the 'how people should program' part from the
> 'what we will support part'. My opinion is that input.placeholder
> should be supported, because it is consistent with how everything else
> works.
>
> I don't think that most web developers even know that accessing
> attributes as properties is deprecated, and would be surprised that
> setting input.placeholder does nothing.

We don't have a placeholder property in the interface for HTML <input>  
elements, but this is due to oversight and lack of subsequent demand.  
It was not meant to be a principled stand on the merits of DOM  
attributes. Personally I think using getAttribute and setAttribute for  
everything is a painful and error-prone coding style.

Regards,
Maciej