Robert Nyman
robertnyman.com · Personal blog · on HN since 2008
Robert Nyman is a web developer who has written about JavaScript, CSS, browsers, and HTML5 forms.
What HN saysHN commenters link him for JavaScript semicolon insertion pitfalls, CSS pointer-events click-through, HTML5 input types, and jQuery-era trivia.
31HN people shared it
8linked it in comments
36stories submitted
177story points
8 months agolast shared
2008people per year2026
Most-shared posts
- 1Microsoft force-installs Firefox extension2 people · 7 points · first shared 2009 · 2 comments on HN
- 2Explaining JavaScript scope and closures2 people · 5 points · first shared 2010 · discussion on HN
- 3The launch of Firefox OS – my thoughts and some history2 people · 3 points · first shared 2013 · discussion on HN
- 4Beware of javascript semicolon insertion2 people · first shared 2011
- 5WebKit: An Objective View1 people · 57 points · first shared 2013 · 21 comments on HN
- 6Drop Shadow With CSS For All Web Browsers1 people · 35 points · first shared 2010 · 4 comments on HN
- 7Web browser versions are dead – automatic updates is the future1 people · 21 points · first shared 2011 · 20 comments on HN
- 8Technical Evangelist from Mozilla Is Joining Google1 people · 3 points · first shared 2014 · discussion on HN
- 9HTML5 Hurdles: What Is Missing And Web Browser Update Rate Problems1 people · 3 points · first shared 2011 · discussion on HN
- 10Apple to patent CSS transformations and animations1 people · 3 points · first shared 2009 · 3 comments on HN
- 11How To Reduce The Number Of HTTP Requests1 people · 3 points · first shared 2010 · discussion on HN
- 12A reply to Microsoft’s statement about IE9 vs. Firefox adoption rate1 people · 3 points · first shared 2011 · discussion on HN
- 13Trying out Google Inbox1 people · 2 points · first shared 2014 · discussion on HN
- 14JavaScript Inheritance – How and Why (2008)1 people · 2 points · first shared 2024 · discussion on HN
- 15Neurodiversity1 people · 2 points · first shared 2014 · discussion on HN
What HN people wrote when they linked it
gaigalas · 2026-02-21
Just casual trivia:
One of the contemporaneous competitors to jQuery was called "DOMAss".
https://robertnyman.com/2007/03/02/domass-renamed-to-domassistant-with…
notjustanymike · 2014-06-10
Would it really be so hard to support a calendar?
http://robertnyman.com/html5/forms/input-types.html
windsurfer · 2014-01-30
You might need some semi-colons though...
http://robertnyman.com/2008/10/16/beware-of-javascript-semicolon-inser…
chime · 2012-05-16
The click-jacking ability has been known for over a year now: http://robertnyman.com/2010/03/22/css-pointer-events-to-allow-clicks-o…
wmil · 2011-05-12
Actually BSD style causes problems in Javascript due to semicolon insertion.
http://robertnyman.com/2008/10/16/beware-of-javascript-semicolon-inser…
kylec · 2011-01-21
You are right to expect this from Microsoft, they've done it before:
http://robertnyman.com/2009/01/26/microsoft-force-installs-firefox-ext…
maxwell · 2009-10-10
You'll get better performance with
for (var i=0, l=myLinkCollection.length; i<l; i++) { }
http://robertnyman.com/2008/04/11/javascript-loop-performance/
JimDabell · 2025-06-27
jQuery in ~2008 was when it kinda took off, but jQuery was itself an outgrowth of work done before it on browser compatibility with JavaScript. In particular, events.
Internet Explorer didn’t support DOM events, so addEventListener wasn’t cross-browser compatible. A lot of people put work in to come up with an addEvent that worked consistently cross-browser.
The DOMContentLoaded event didn’t exist, only the load event. The load event wasn’t really suitable for setting up things like event handlers because it would wait until all external resources like images had been loaded too, which was a significant delay during which time the user could be interacting with the page. Getting JavaScript to run consistently after the DOM was available, but without waiting for images was a bit tricky.
These kinds of things were iterated on in a series of blog posts from several different web developers. One blogger would publish one solution, people would find shortcomings with it, then another blogger would publish a version that fixed some things, and so on.
This is an example of the kind of thing that was happening, and you’ll note that it refers to work on this going back to 2001:
https://robertnyman.com/2006/08/30/event-handling-in-javascript-an-alt…
When jQuery came along, it was really trying to achieve two things: firstly, incorporating things like this to help browser compatibility; and second, to provide a “fluent” API where you could chain API…