DOM Scripting Task Force
The DOM Scripting Task Force is an autonomous working group of the Web Standards Project. Our mission is to bring scripting up to parity with XHTML and CSS as a useful and necessary tool for building accessible, user-centric, standards-based web sites.
Manifesto
The DOM Scripting Task Force’s first principles and mission.
Definitions
The definitions used by the Task force for terms such as DHTML, Ajax and unobtrusive scripting.
- Task Force Leaders
The Web Standards Project is a grassroots coalition fighting for standards which ensure simple, affordable access to web technologies for all.
Recent Task Force Buzz
DOM Scripting: A Web Standard
By Jeremy Keith | February 20th, 2008
Following @media 2005 — the first Web Standards conference in Europe — a group of front-end coders gathered in a pub in London to discuss JavaScript. JavaScript had a problem. Its reputation was tarnished, to say the least. The common perception of client-side scripting was frozen in the late ’90s era of browser-specific DHTML. Most people thought it unusable and inaccessible. In truth, the Document Object Model had better cross-browser support than CSS. This misperception needed to be addressed and the gang of geeks gathered on the banks of the Thames were just the bunch to tackle it. That’s how the DOM Scripting Task Force was born.
Steve Balmer once said “Developers! Developers! Developers!” Tony Blair once said “Education! Education! Education!” Put the two together and you’ve got the very straightforward raison d’etre for the task force: to educate developers about the mature state of JavaScript and the DOM. DOM Scripting was the missing piece of the Web Standards puzzle: markup for structure, Cascading Style Sheets for presentation and DOM Scripting for behaviour… provided it was implemented with thought and care.
The Web Standards Project was started because browser makers didn’t implement the DOM as a web standard consistently. The DOM Scripting Task Force formed much later to encourage browser makers and developers to manipulate web sites with JavaScript in a meaningful and standards-oriented way — scripting the DOM.
Fast forward to today. JavaScript has come a long way. I wish the DOM Scripting Task Force could take the credit but the real impetus came from the rise of Ajax. The Web has changed in many ways as a result of that scripting technology: some good, some bad. But one unmistakable consequence has been the recognition of JavaScript as a powerful tool for web development.In fact, the technology is in such demand that the members of the DOM Scripting task force have barely had time to devote to furthering its cause. Another change in the market has been the rise and wide adoption of libraries that offer easier access to the HTML content and fix browser implementation bugs of the DOM standard for you.
There is no further need for a task force to promote DOM Scripting. Don’t get me wrong: there’s still plenty of work to be done in the realm of client-side scripting. But it no longer makes sense to treat DOM Scripting as something separate to Web Standards. JavaScript — or, more accurately, ECMAScript — is now an accepted part of the front-end stack along with with (X)HTML and CSS. Rather than keeping discussion of the DOM sequestered in a task force, it will now take place alongside its fellow Web Standards.
The task force has had a good run: my sincerest thanks go out to my fellow task force members. There’s plenty of more work ahead of us. At the same time as we bid farewell to the DOM Scripting Task Force, we greet DOM Scripting as one of the core technologies championed by the Web Standards Project.
More Buzz articles
| Title | Date |
|---|---|
| A band-aid for browsers | March 26th, 2007 |
| Talking with Microsoft about IE.next | February 4th, 2007 |
| Reducing the pain of adopting a JavaScript library | December 12th, 2006 |
| You can improve IE.next | November 4th, 2006 |