A Code Snippet That Speaks For Itself

by Colin Cochrane 12/4/2007 12:18:00 PM

While working on a client's site today I came across this gem that I thought you might enjoy. I'll let the snippet speak for itself.

*Smacks Forehead*

32533e54-e403-4876-aee7-3a2784bb8e2b|16|4.9

Tags: bad code, html

HTML | Humour

Reducing Code Bloat - Or How To Cut Your HTML Size In HalfWhen it comes to designing and developing a web site the load time is one consideration that is ofte...Reducing Code Bloat Part Two - Semantic HTMLIn my first post on this subject, Reducing Code Bloat - Or How To Cut Your HTML Size In Half, I demo....NET Code Tips: Converting A UNIX Timestamp To System.DateTimeAfter having to deal with UNIX timestamps in an application I am currently developing, I realized th...

Comments (5) -

12/4/2007 11:23:55 PM

That looks awful. I am not really familiar with this stuff though--did some code generator make that? If so, which one? I guess if the HTML works, it can't be that bad. A lot of pages don't even work.

Sam

12/4/2007 11:42:29 PM

I'm sad to say that it is man-made. The site in question is all hand-coded.

Colin Cochrane

12/18/2007 12:58:52 PM

OK - for those of us who are new to HTML and Javascript yet thoroughly enjoy your work here, can you spell out what's so funny about the code?

Gary

12/18/2007 1:17:43 PM

You've probably seen web documents where the content of a <script> element has been wrapped in an SGML comment tag like so:
<script type="text/javascript">

</script>

The purpose of the comment tag is to "hide" the script from older browsers that don't support Javascript. Without the comment tag those browsers will render the contents
of the <script> element as normal text. For instance, a page with the following markup...

*****************************
<body onload="dosomething()">
<h1>Products</h1>
<script>
function dosomething(){}
</script>
<p> This is my product! </p>
</body>
*****************************

...would end up displaying as...

******************************
Products
function dosomething(){}

This is my product!
******************************

With this in mind, the snippet in the original post is amusing because it's using javascript to output a comment tag to hide the script from those older browsers...that don't support Javascript.