[Javascript] combining Javascript & VBscript

[Paul Novitski]

At 09:15 AM 3/30/2004, Chris T wrote:
>Scripting languages are interchanged easily enough to where you can
>call a JS function that in turn calls a VBScript function. What I don't know
>is what would happen if you had 2 functions (one JS and one VB) by the same
>name. I'm too lazy to find out though :)


You lazy bum, get to work!  (*crack*)  Using two client scripting languages 
in the same page is something I've mused over but never taken the time to 
play with.  In the attached demo, I tried two things with expected results:

- IE 6.02:

1) If the same function name is used by a Javascript block and a VBscript 
block, the function that is called by the document is the first one to 
occur on the page.  In the attached script, I've put Javascript first so 
it's the one called.  (Personally I wish this produced an error message, or 
could be controlled with something akin to ASP's Option Explicit directive 
to enforce uniqueness in the namespace.)

2) A Javascript function can successfully call a VBscript function and vice 
versa.

- Netscape 7.1:

1) Javascript is run, VBscript is ignored.

2) The call to the VBscript function from within Javascript triggers a 
runtime error.

Of course, those who take practicality too seriously will ask why on earth 
one would want to use two scripting languages in the same page.  Fussy, 
picky!  Obviously, one reason would be if a programmer preferred to use one 
language but wanted to take advantage of features that occur in the other, 
for example Javascript's string methods or, gosh, I don't know, maybe 
VBscript's high-level date & time formatting.

The main disadvantages I can see are a) the browser will have to load both 
interpreters, taking up several microseconds of my valuable time and 
megabytes of ram, and b) juggling two scripting languages in the same 
context would probably cause me to make more programming mistakes than I do 
already (*blanch*).

Of course, any block of VBscript will be invisible to a non-IE browser, 
which conceivably could be turned to one's advantage in juggling browser 
discrapencies (what a great typo! I think I'll keep it).

Paul 
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.evolt.org/pipermail/javascript/attachments/20040330/a1e875fc/attachment.html>