[whatwg] Proposal: Adding methods like getElementById and getElementsByTagName to DocumentFragments

[Zirak A]

But that's a bit looking at it backwards. Selectors are supposed to be an
abstraction over these methods, not the other way around. The point here is that
document fragments are documents - so they should have a consistent API.
Adding this isn't about "backwards compatibility" or anything of the sort. It's
adding methods that people already use, because as said, not everyone uses
selectors (and not just because of browser-compat).
  
----- Original Message -----
From: Tab Atkins Jr.
Sent: 06/28/13 11:52 PM
To: Zirak A
Subject: Re: [whatwg] Proposal: Adding methods like getElementById and getElementsByTagName to DocumentFragments
 On Fri, Jun 28, 2013 at 4:45 PM, Zirak A <zirak at mail.com> wrote:
> My intention wasn't for this to be an argument whether the selectors API make
> anything before them obsolete. The intention was to make the API more
> consistent - if documents have a getElementById method, so should document
> fragments.
> I acknowledge that selectors let you write more complex queries, and that some
> developers prefer them. However, others (like me) prefer using the "older"
> methods like getElementById. As said, this is an attempt to make the API more
> consistent, given that we already have methods like getElementById.

While consistency with the past is good, it shouldn't be fetishized.
Adding methods means more code in the browsers, which is a non-zero
cost. When the requested feature is literally 100% obsoleted by
another feature that already exists, there's really no reason to add
the requested feature.

Note that you can add these yourself, if desired, by adding methods to
the DocumentFragment prototype that are defined in terms of
querySelector.

~TJ