Is DHTML Dead

¶ … DHTML dead?

In the view of many pundits there seems to be little doubt that DHTML has seen its best days and is, in terms of serious development, a dead issue. As Russell Jones writing for DevX.Com, states:

The bottom line is: DHTML is dead for serious application development; browsers, as application delivery platforms, are past their peak; and the future of distributed, interactive applications -- at least on Windows -- belongs to .NET. If you're developing these types of applications and you're not learning .NET, you may want to rethink your career plans.

(Jones R.A.)

This view points to a number of issues relating to the present status and future of DHTML -- including the fact that there are numerous alternatives technologies which are more innovative and practically interesting from a developer's point-of-view.

Briefly, at present there are a number of opposing points-of-view. On the one hand there are those who discount DHTML as already dead and buried as a viable development technology. They suggest newer options such as Flash, Java or .NET as more appropriate for developing dynamic sites. On the other hand there are some commentators who still see value in DHTML as a DOM scripting tool.

The release of Internet Explorer 4 by Microsoft changed the direction of client-side development for the Web. This led to the introduction of Dynamic HTML of DHTML In realty DHTML refers to a combination of elements such as CSS or Cascading Stylesheets and scripting which allowed the developer to go beyond the static and limited interactivity of HTML DHTML provided access to the Document Object Model (DOM) for HTML pages. By controlling DOM with script the developer could " ... access any object in the page, modify its contents, its position, its CSS properties, and even add custom properties of your own." (ibid) However the changing and competitive browser market during the 1990's resulted in different standards and complicated the implementation of DHTML This simply dissuaded developers from using DHTML extensively. As many developers have pointed out, the fact that DHTML had to be written to accommodate different browsers made it an unwieldy tool for Web development.

Even though there have been improvements in this regard, and in the acceptance of common standards, yet there is a modern predilection for more cross-platform and extensible technologies such as Macromedia Flash, which has become the ubiquitous development tool on the Web. Java has also been touted by some as a viable development technology that is more flexible and easier to implement that DHTML. The advent of Microsoft's .Net technology has, for many developers, sealed the fate of DHTML for ever. As Jones states:

.NET looks like it has the legs to muscle into Flash and applet territory. Like Flash, you can manipulate graphics and audio using the built-in GDI+ classes or via COM interop with existing technologies such as DirectDraw. Like Java applets, .NET client applications download and install automatically. Like Java applets, .NET applications are fast enough to build interactive games.

( ibid)