Named element IDs can be referenced as JavaScript globals

Post by WorldMaker » Tue, Sep 27, 2022, 5:34 PM UTC

bobince wrote: post #44

kiawe_fire wrote: post #35

Seems like something that could have been made safer just by name spacing it a bit better. Something like “window.elements.myDiv”? I wonder why the decision to go straight to the root.

The Netscape of the 90s wasn't interested in making features ‘safe’. They were about throwing out features as quickly as possible to see what would stick. The simplest possible syntax is to make named elements available globally, and if that clashes with future additions to the DOM API then well that's a problem for some future idiots to worry about. as a strategy it worked pretty well, unfortunately

Post by akira2501 » Tue, Sep 27, 2022, 5:40 PM UTC

kiawe_fire wrote: post #35

Seems like something that could have been made safer just by name spacing it a bit better. Something like “window.elements.myDiv”? I wonder why the decision to go straight to the root.

    // proxy to simplify loading and caching of getElementById calls
    const $id = new Proxy({}, {
        // get element from cache, or from DOM
        get: (tgt, k, r) => (tgt[k] || ((r = document.getElementById(k)) && (tgt[k] = r))),
        
        // prevent overwriting
        set: () => $throw(`Attempt to overwrite id cache key!`)
    });

    $id.something.innerHTML = 'inside!';

Post by codedokode » Tue, Sep 27, 2022, 5:44 PM UTC

Post by thunderbong » Tue, Sep 27, 2022, 5:50 PM UTC

tambourine_man wrote: post #69

*rigamorale Should read “rigamarole”

Post by mmazzarolo » Tue, Sep 27, 2022, 6:23 PM UTC

eithed wrote: post #74

>To add insult to the injury, named elements are accessible as global variables only if the names contain nothing but letter. This doesn't seem to be true as shown within this fiddle: https://jsfiddle.net/L785cpdo/1/ Bear in mind that only undefined elements will be declared this way