I'll sue you if you use my common-sense JavaScript tests

- minifying and gzipping the javascript files is considered standard practice now, and the code I posted as-is is actually shorter than David Marks' case [* I lied! It's not, by 100 chars. Even shortening the object references kept it a bit longer. I don't think this defeats the rest of my points though.]. It could further be shortened, a lot -- to the point that for all practical purposes it's as small as a non-memoizing version.

- I tend to use a camelCaser in much more than simple animation loops -- any time for example that the style attributes for any element are referenced. i.e., it qualifies as an inner-most function.

- Although it's true that in animation loops you just have to beat the frame rate, let's keep in mind that there are a wide variety of processors and systems in use, and not everyone is using the latest dual-core Intel system with 3 gigs of RAM.

As a point of personal style, I much prefer to take the shortest, fastest, least-resource-intensive path for any given task, even if it's not strictly necessary to do so. As an end-user, I'm disgusted beyond description with the mindset that has become so prevalent among programmers, where efficiency is something that should be solved in hardware. It's absolutely frustrating that there are sites where the programmers have made so many concessions to speed in the name of rapid development that I can't even get the site to load in a few seconds on a 1.5 ghz G4.

So, yes, you're right, but I think the bit from David Marks' code is still naive and still does not make best use of the language:

    camelize = function(name) {
      var m = name.match(reCamel);
      return (m)?([m[1], m[2].toUpperCase(), m[3]].join('')):name;
    };

I'm sure there're people out there that enjoy comp.lang.javascript too.

It solves problems I don't have. I don't need to lookup elements in the dom, because I put them there. I already know where they are.

I don't need a slow .bind() method - I know how to write closures.

Look at one of the top news items - jQuery plugin 'behavior'. It just doesn't make any sense.

Look at some of the source code. For example .addClass(). It's the most general you could imagine - can take a list of classes, or a function. Yet I'm betting most of the time it's being called with a single class to add. There's a lot of wasted checks and effort in there. It's checking the type, it's splitting the string on " ", it's checking to see the class isn't already listed etc etc

Also everything is assuming it's operating on a list of elements - cue wasteful for loops when they're not needed.

So, when you do the seemingly simple

  $('#myelement').addClass("foo");

Those are precious wasted cycles. And for what? so you can write:

  $('#myelement').addClass("foo");

  // I already have a js ref to myElement thanks,
  // and know myElement doesn't already have 'foo' in className
  myElement.className+=" foo";

window.blah === undefined

and require the more verbose equivalent I've seen pushed on c.l.j:

typeof window.blah === "undefined"

There's simply no market left for this sort of paleo-Javascript.

I think it's a bold claim to say that David's understanding of the DOM is "significantly deeper" than John's. Especially considering that the DOM is not a particularly complex set of APIs.

One can only hope that he does actually improve Dojo, instead of destroy their community or credibility with his rants.

Instead of detecting which browser you are using based on which features you support, the script should check to see if the features it wants to use exist, and if so use them.

So, instead of:

   var isIE = !!document.all;
   function doSomething()
   {
     if (isIE) document.all.whatever();
   }

   if (document.all)
   {
       function doSomething()
       {
           document.all.whatever();
       }
   }

    var isIE = navigator.userAgent.ssubstr...;
    var isIE = !!document.all;

I noticed in several parts in his response, he's trying to claim credit for aspects of jQuery's development -- something that I think most people would find patently ridiculous. Given David's recent threats, if I were Resig, I'd be tempted to start using the word "defamation" and tell David to put up some evidence or shut up.

Fortunately, I'm sure Resig's more level-headed.

Still, I think there's a difference between responding to an unprovoked attack thread, and starting one in the first place. In any case, we'd all be better off with a little less sarcasm and a lot more substance in this discussion, and for that I apologize.