Pete Forde wrote:
http://dev.rubyonrails.org/ticket/5122
#5122 addressed adding document.getElementsByAttribute, alongside the
existing document.getElementsByClassName. We've found that while it's
I'm not arguing with the usefulness of this function but I am wondering
why this should be used over selectors. I.E. You have:
document.getElementsByAttribute('subtotal').each(function(obj) {
obj.onchange = handle_calc;
});
why not just do:
$$('[subtotal]').each(function(obj) {
obj.onchange = handle_calc;
});
My concern is that what if later we want a function that will find all
elements where attribute "changed" is equal to "true". Then we want to
find all elements where the tag is "td" and the attribute "changed" is
equal to "true". As you can see we can go on forever like this. As we
keep adding methods to make element selection we end up with a bigger
and bigger API that programmers have to learn to get the elements they
need. Also prototype becomes large which is not good for a library that
must be downloaded to every client.
OR
We can just use selectors. CSS selectors are very good as specifying
elements in a document. Take a look at
http://www.blooberry.com/indexdot/css/syntax/selectors/selectors.htm to
see how capable they are. I don't know if prototype support all the
syntax that CSS selectors are capable of yet but it seems to me that is
where the effort should be placed and not on adding to the API.
Selectors are concise and people already know them from CSS (so nothing
new to learn).
The only advantage to special purpose selector functions is perhaps
performance but I have found the selectors code quite efficient.
Especially if you keep a few things in mind. See my post from the 31st
for tips on how to keep performance good when using selectors.
Just my two cents. I welcome disagreements. :)
Eric
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