[Javascript] OT: Getting the width property of div

[Flavio Gomes]

<smile />
  XHTML Compliant.. lol

Paul Novitski wrote:

> At 01:40 PM 4/5/2005, Dash wrote:
>
>> do the people that come up with the standards for these things, have 
>> a motto of "everyone likes a challenge, and a damn hard one at that" 
>> or something?
>
>
>
> <smile />  I imagine that the W3C designers are fraught with angst and 
> torn by dilemma.  If they could simply start from scratch and design a 
> clean system without having to accommodate legacy user-agents, what a 
> different field this would be!  Then they'd only have to argue with 
> one another about what's best instead of also constantly having to 
> compromise with yesterday's (and today's!) oogly blunders and myriad 
> development paths.
>
> In the case of obj.style.width vs. obj.offsetWidth, however, I think 
> it's more a matter of us learning to memorize a zillion minute rules.  
> I may want to know what width, if any, was applied to an element 
> through styling and not what it's actual width is, or I may want to 
> know its width without regard to its styling.  If I'm right about the 
> difference, it's no mere insignificant annoyance.  It's our job to ask 
> the machine the right questions to get the answers we seek.  [Perhaps 
> more like poking a stick into a roiling mass of spiked tentacles and 
> learning to dodge flying death.]
>
> Paul