Re: LYNX-DEV Lynx and JavaScript -Reply -Reply

[Doug Lawson]

On Thu, 14 Nov 1996, David Godshall wrote:

> DL>
>  | How silly!  The viewers of a web page want to know the last itme
>  | the CONTENT was modified.  An automated script simply tells what
>  | time the last correction was made.  If I modify a file to correct
>  | a typo, it gets a new date, which is then completely meaningless
>  | from teh reader's point of view. 
> DL>
> 
> You have a point.  On the other hand, that method requires manually
> changing the date and time, and I know *I* would often forget. 

It's a matter of habit - once you get used ot looking at the bottom of a 
page to see if you need to change a date, you don't forget any more. 

Personally, I think having accurate information on the pages is worth a 
little effort, especially if you've got to edit the page anyway.

There's a lesson in the popularity of JavaScript, though; for a short 
period of time, it made people feel like they were PROGRAMMMING, instead 
pf just writing HTML.  It contributed greatly to the popularity of 
N*tSc*pe in the mini-war with M*cros*ft. 

I shudder to think of all the bad habits being developed by JavaScript
'programmers' and how they will impact the general level of the art in the
decades to come (remember how, in the late 1980s, there was a general 
campaign against the GOTO that so many people learned from writing 
BASIC?  Well, there are a lot more people writing "JavaScript" now than 
there were writing BASIC then...)

Doug 

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