Re: Scripting and XML

Paul Prescod (papresco@technologist.com)
Sun, 19 Oct 1997 18:20:31 -0400

Simon St.Laurent wrote:
>
> At present, most SCRIPT tags in use on the Internet already have to hide their
> code inside comments to avoid spilling their contents across the screens of
> older browsers. This just seems to add an extra layer of detritus to scripts.
> While it's workable, it doesn't seem like an elegant way to interoperate with
> another key set of web standards. As scripting and markup grow more and more
> intertwined (i.e., the document object model becomes a reality), I suspect
> this is going to be at least an eyesore if not a roadblock.

Actually, I think that the situation is the opposite. The document
object model finally allows you to refer to document elements from
*outside* your document so that you have *less need* to directly mix
scripts and code. Using DOM I can create a client-side program that
takes an XML instance as input and returns XML as output. I can't do
that with JavaScript as it exists today. The JavaScript "model" is
textual replacement (which must, by definition, be "inline"). The DOM
model is structural processing (which can be done "remotely").

I expect that a few years from now this convention of putting markup and
scripting cheek to cheek will have died out. It is just another face of
the logical markup vs. presentational markup war The trend is from
inline to external, just as with presentation.

Paul Prescod