JavaScript
Well, JavaScript is Turing-complete, so we’re safe using it for any browser-related issue we may face, aren’t we?
I would fairly disagree, as driven by powerful frameworks JavaScript is used also for implementations that are meantime within reach of CSS3 and HTML5. So I use JavaScript basically to
- change styles on events not supported by CSS (e.g. “click”). Note that JavaScript representations of the CSS attributes differ from their native CSS names if they contain a hyphen as JavaScript always interprets it as a minus symbol (so you need a CSS to JavaScript style mapping legend) or apply the rule “remove the hyphen, then camel-case”
- handle AJAX requests and responses
- manage browser windows and links
But even such basic use is sometimes tricky. Just try to remove event listeners from a DOM element, that have been set by foreign code, or by a previous instance of your own code. Without juggling DOM nodes, still today, it’s impossible. So it’s not the language itself, but the BOM/DOM APIs it uses. See JS/ DOM events for some details.
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