Comments on: Internet Explorer doesn’t just suck, it also blows!

By: AutisticCuckoo

AutisticCuckoo — Mon, 03 Dec 2007 08:07:06 +0000

Unlike the authors of the imminent Ultimate CSS Reference, I didn’t have any particular inclination to be nice to Internet Explorer.

Believe me, James, it wasn’t us authors who felt inclined to be nice to IE. SitePoint’s editorial staff didn’t want us to put ‘partial support’ for every CSS property in IE, although it doesn’t support the inherit value. The reason was that they didn’t want the book to appear as wanton IE bashing, since that could make parts of the target audience less inclined to buy the book. In the end it didn’t matter much, since IE has issues with most CSS properties anyway.

I just wanted to set the record straight. I’m really looking forward to reading your book!

By: brothercake

brothercake — Sun, 02 Dec 2007 23:23:12 +0000

Thanks for the comments, and for the COM info – that’s very helpful.

By: madr

madr — Sun, 02 Dec 2007 00:27:49 +0000

Great stuff! :D

I, whom prefer to write my javascript by hand rather than trusting a library, really approciate these kind of articles. I surely bookmark this one and place it in my bookmarks toolbar. Might coming handy (last week, I tracked down JS/DOM bugs in IE for about 20 hours at work. Really sucks.)

By: Wildhoney

Wildhoney — Fri, 30 Nov 2007 23:59:39 +0000

I've found Javascript to be quite a headache in Internet Explorer, too. In some DOM functions it supports only one argument, where every other browser supports two, so you have to use a try and catch block, and what this is about with the enctype, I do not know.

By: Czaries

Czaries — Fri, 30 Nov 2007 20:15:40 +0000

As others have mentioned, that is exactly why I use a javascript framework! I just don’t have time to deal with these kinds of inconsistencies when there are such easy ways around them (jQuery is only 21k and worth every last bit! [pun intended]). Frankly, I’m really not sure why you do seem to have time to mess around with and report on these kinds of issues when everyone else just fills the gaps in with a well tested cross-browser framework.

By: The Peach

The Peach — Fri, 30 Nov 2007 17:13:59 +0000

hopefully you didn’t talk about the marvellous js debugger made by MS!!! rotflmao

By: issesi sagawa

issesi sagawa — Fri, 30 Nov 2007 16:10:12 +0000

Yes. I like Internet Explorer. God.

By: Dave

Dave — Fri, 30 Nov 2007 15:05:30 +0000

values which evaluate to boolean true return 65535 (which is 216, the largest possible value of a 16-bit number. What’s up with that??)

IE’s DOM functionality is implemented using Microsoft COM. The COM VT_BOOL defines VARIANT_TRUE in 16 bits is -1 or 0xFFFF. This was inherited from Visual Basic.

By: gwenhwyfaer

gwenhwyfaer — Fri, 30 Nov 2007 14:58:15 +0000

with all the javascript libraries out there like mootools, dojo, jquery, prototype; why the hell do you even need to know native javascript?

Seems like you need the obvious pointing out, tpetruzzi, so here goes – someone needs to know native javascript, in order to (a) write the libraries you list in the first place, and (b) figure out why they aren’t working on the latest browser updates the way they’re supposed to. Since you have clearly chosen the path of parasitic ignorance, why not delight that brothercake can be one of your knowledge hosts?

(These tiresome people who pipe up “dude, just use a library” whenever anyone talks about writing any code that might possibly do something that someone else on the planet might ever have done – do they believe that these libraries evolve on server farms or something…?)

By: sapphirecat

sapphirecat — Fri, 30 Nov 2007 14:58:15 +0000

65535 is also -1, if it’s a signed 16-bit number being displayed as unsigned.