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Improving Your JavaScript

JavaScript has evolved over the years and there are things that can be done with JavaScript now that couldn't be done a few years ago. These tutorials present ways in which you can take existing JavaScript from a while ago and rework them to make better use of the newer features that are now available.
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20 Articles in: Improving Your JavaScript
The Best Place to Attach JavaScript
There are only two places worth considering for attaching modern JavaScript unobtrusively into a web page.
Cross Browser Add and Remove Event Listeners
Cross browser add and remove event listener functionality can have a variety of issues. Here's my variant of the code that jQuery uses to resolve many of those issues.
href="#"
A # by itself in the href attribute is not valid. Sites teaching you how to write HTML and JavaScript use it as a placeholder that should be replaced in live code with a real destination.
Self Documenting Code
You should not be using comments to describe what your code does, the code itself should show that.
New JavaScript Commands
Sometimes new commands are added to JavaScript. Older browsers may not be able to process these commands.
Getting Rid of document.write
The document.write statement was an essential part of early JavaScripts but is now completely unnecessary as anything that can be done with document.write can be done better using innerHTML.
Accessibility and JavaScript
JavaScript should be coded in an unobtrusive fashion in order to make our web pages more accessible to those visitors who don't have it enabled.
Making Your JavaScript More Efficient
As JavaScript is an interpreted language there are minor changes to the way we write out code that will affect how quickly it will run.
Unobtrusive JavaScript - Avoiding Script Clashes
There is more than one meaning when it comes to describing JavaScript as unobtrusive. Here we look at how to stop one JavaScript interfering with another JavaScript on the same page.
Faster DOM Access
How to put a Javascript on an XHTML page so that it will pass validation.
How to Split Webpage JavaScript into Separate Files
When you first write a new JavaScript the easiest way to set it up is to embed the JavaScript code directly into the web page.
Getting Rid of Noscript
You can greatly simplify your HTML and your JavaScript by disposing of the noscript tag.
Alternatives to "eval"
There is never any need to use eval in Javascript as there are always better ways to achieve the required result.
Table Specific DOM Elements
There are two ways to access the elements within a table from JavaScript. I had always assumed that one of those ways was always faster than the other. It isn't in all browsers but by running a speed test I was able to come up with an actual comparison of the two methods so that I no longer need to assume that one is faster than the other because now I know.
HTML 5 And noscript
HTML 5 proposes changing where the noscript tag can be used so as to reintroduce a use for it.
document.write
How the Javascript document.write method works.
Evolving JavaScript
What JavaScript can and can't do has changed over time. What was best (or only) practice at one time may now be something to avoid.
Unobtrusive JavaScript
Separating the JavaScript from your HTML.
Design for Usability
Things you need to consideration for making a web page as accessible and user friendly as possible and where JavaScript fits.
Making Events Unobtrusive
Update old JavaScripts by converting them to make them unobtrusive. Here's step by step instructions on how to do it.
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