Author: yuval

Thanks to folks at work, I am now a published (co)author.

The article deals with the OpenCMS, free, open source content management system. Wheeeee.

After working on ensuring the site I am developing for my current project is compliant with Safari, I collected a bunch of experiences that I should share for posterity. Most of them have to do with the fact that Safari, based on the same KTML browser core as the KDE project’s Konqueror browser, seems to never have improved on the original KTML version’s JavaScript engine, while Konqueror did. Safari, like a slab of rock and a chisel, is still eons ahead of Opera, but that’s a different story.

So, let’s bitch about Safari.

The problem I had with Safari today has to do with the fact that in order to save a lot of unnecessary code specifying onclick events, I am instead assigning the events to links on the page dynamically when the page loads. For example, what I do is iterate over the links in a table, and then assign them a function to be called when they are clicked:

var tableLinks = myTable.getElementsByTagName(“a”);
for(var x=0; x < tableLinks.length; x++) { tableLinks[x].onclick = function() { doSomething(); }; } When certain conditions are met, I want to assign a different event handler function to one of these links, which I assign the same way: link.onclick = function() { doSomethingElse() }; But with Safari, no. Once you set one event on a link, it is there to stay. Boo freakin' hoo. Apple support pages proclaim the standards compliance but for real action, give me IE over Safari anyday. If you are lucky enough to use an Apple machine, just use Firefox. (This will be my standard endnote for every Safari bitch. I know you care.)

Thinking of what’s happening in the middle east, with Israel’s entaglement with Hizbullah and the entire mess in Iraq, one has to think back to Kissinger and Bismark and whether idealism failed.

The current American policy is absolutely on the side of right: promote democracy around the world, reduce reliance on regimes that are dictatorial and tyranical. In that vein, overthrowing Saddam and pushing the Syrians out of Lebanon were great successes. Then you have to think, not without cynicism, about whether a country is *ready* for democracy.

A great article in the Wall Street Journal adovcated the return of Syria into Lebanon; apologize to the Assad regime, and given his severing his relations with Iran, make Lebanon a Syrian protectorate. Syria has nothing of the issues democratic regimes have dealing with Muslim extremists; Syria has no problem reversing course either, lacking any opposition. Syria ran Lebanon and did a decent job, relatively, helping the country regain economical stability. If they agree to kick Hizbullah out, all the more better.

As for Iraq – was Saddam *really* that bad? was it really that bad to have a counterweight as vicious and evil for Iran? Saddam definitely treated his citizens in the harshest of ways. Still, Kissinger and McNamara would have followed the rationale that for the US, for the West, it is better to sacrifice the people of Iraq for the interests of the West.  Looking at Iraq today – are the people better now than 15 years ago?