25 March 2007 Archives

For the first time, I managed to make it to Shaw’s Nature Center when the daffodils are at their peak. The Center’s daffodils have grown wild, and as such they blanket the grounds.

In the past, I’ve typically taken photos of daffodils up close, brightly lit by the sun and shining with vivid color–a harlot among the more delicately hued spring flowers, all tarted up in their brassy yellows and bright greens.

I noticed yesterday, though, that the daffodil is really a very shy flower whose color is much more muted and subtle when you view the flower as part of the landscape. By itself and very close, it is a lovely flower and can cheer even the most determined grump. However, when the daffodils form part of a scene, just barely there at the edge of one’s consciousness, they draw the eye across the fields to to a distant edge you can’t quite see. A reminder of Spring, yes; but also a reminder that the seeming infinity of Spring is merely an illusion.

Daffodils

I’ve only downloaded it and started playing, but I like the idea of a JavaScript library based purely on implementing standards. Small and lightweight, Dean Edwards’ base2.DOM provides a good baseline for development without worrying about interesting proprietary extensions and recalcitrant browsers.

Not that I’m naming names.

Edwards’ library does provide support for the older 5.x versions of IE. Those are browsers I won’t support anymore. I realize there are people using version 9 of the Mac OS or other equipment still loaded with the 5.x versions, and that not supporting old browsers limits their access to applications. However, as long as any JavaScript-enabled application has a non-script enabled alternative that provides the same functionality, I’d rather just turn off any script effects for such instead of adding enormous amounts of code to deal with the idiosyncrasies. Thank goodness for the concept of progressive enhancement…and nice, small footprint JS libraries.

As for the Edwards’ self-deprecating reference to base2.DOM not being a documented library, JavaScript libraries don’t have to be documented when they’re small, use meaningful naming standards, and are easy to read. Note to Dojo: this doesn’t mean you.