Suppose CSS as we know it had never been invented, and the closest we could get was
to do this:
<script>
// this is the page's stylesheet
$(document).ready(function(){
$('.error').css({'color':'red'});
$('a[href]').css({'textDecoration':'none'});
...
});
</script>
If this was how we were forced
to write code, would we put up with it? Or would every developer on Earth scream at browser vendors until they standardized upon CSS, or at least some kind of declarative style language?
Maybe CSS isn't perfect, but hopefully it's obvious how it's better than the find things, do stuff method shown above. So my question is this. We've seen and tasted of the glory of declarative binding with CSS, so why, when it comes
to the behavioral/interactive layer, does the entire JavaScript community seem complacent about continuing
to use the kludgy procedural method described above? Why for example is this considered by many
to be the best possible way
to do things:
<script>
$(document).ready(function(){
$('.widget').append("<a class='button' href='#'>...</div>");
$('a[href]').click(function(){...});
...
});
</script>
Why isn't there a massive push
to get XBL2.0 or .htc files or some kind of declarative behavior syntax implemented in a standard way across browsers? Is this recognized as a need by other web development professionals? Is there anything on the horizon for HTML5?
(Caveats, disclaimers, etc: I realize that it's not a perfect world and that we're playing the hand we've been dealt. My point isn't
to criticize the current way of doing things so much as
to criticize the complacency that exists about the current way of doing things. Secondly, event delegation, especially at the root level, is a step closer
to having a declarative behavior layer. It solves a subset of the problem, but it can't create UI elements, so the overall problem remains.)
