Get our Newsletter!A few months ago, I wrote a blog post titled Parsing XML: jQuery vs ExtJS. If you don’t feel like reading it, the point of that post is that I was (still am) frustrated by the fact that ExtJS doesn’t have a generic utility that can find a block of HTML/XML in a document that isn’t valid XHTML. For better or for worse, jQuery does allow you to do that.
A reader (identified as “extidiot”) responded saying that the solution was easy and suggested I try his solution. His solution didn’t work because my response object wasn’t a valid HTML/XML/DOM object. I responded saying something like “thanks for your help but it doesn’t work”.
Long story short, I decided to use a regular expression to find the block I needed. Problem solved. End of story.
So I thought.
Apparently, “extidiot” is a member of the ExtJS support team. He must have found my post to have a valid point because he started a thread in the “Feature Requests” forum of the ExtJS message board that very same day. That’s great!
Well, no. I take that back -it’s not great. In a follow up post to his own thread, “extidiot” claims “jQuery apparently does lots of handholding for people who don’t know the difference between textual HTML and a DOM document. The concept being that jQuery can “find” stuff from “HTML” (and the user doesn’t either know or care if the “HTML” is textual HTML, or a DOM document)“. Reading that post, I am a bit irritated for several reasons.
First, I’m taking the “extidiot” name as a direct insult. I met many of the ExtJS support team members at the conference this past April, though not that particular gentleman. The support team was very nice, respectful and seemed to enjoy questions from the public. “extidiot” has a reputation for being “direct” on the message boards, but I feel he’s just being rude. He could at least use his own name when trying to make fun of me on my blog.
Second, I have a valid point. Although I didn’t write those original lines of jQuery, I disagree that it should be considered “handholding”. In fact, being able to parse HTML/XML code from a generic (or invalid) text document is a very helpful utility. If your opinion is that this utility doesn’t fit with the mission of ExtJS – that’s fine. But again, there’s no need to take a personal shot at me.
What irritates me the most is that I actually have a lot of respect for the ExtJS support team – this member included. I don’t care if he doesn’t like or respect me, but it’s really unprofessional to respond like that.
Don’t be so prissy.
1. ExtIdiot is just a name I made up for myself. It’s annoying being asked for names, so I invent stupid ones.
2. I have no connection with the ExtJs company. I just post to help people and try to make them remember the post. A lot of the time this works.
3. Over the past 4 years I see the same questions come up time after time after time after time after time after time after time after time after time after time. Mostly because people go into the whole RIA world completely blind.
They have no knowledge of DOM structure, CSS, object-based Javascript techniques, HTTP communication. And they expect some kind of mind reading magic which takes random code, and creates something which looks like an image which exists only in their head.
And then they won’t read the documentation which is very large, very descriptive, fully cross linked, and contains all the techniques one can use.
No, they get other people to go and find the information, and the post the SELF SAME INFORMATION in the forum. It means more to people to get the SAME information in that way. Copy/pasted instead of finding it themselves.
4. Are you stalking me?
I’m not stalking you. It’s called Google Webmaster Tools – it tells me
when there’s a link into my website. It didn’t take a genius to figure
out who was “extidiot”. I feel like you insulted me on my own blog and
then again on the Ext forums – not cool. It honestly struck a nerve.
Like I said, I have a lot of respect the support team *including you*
(your forum label has “Ext Support Team”). You guys spend countless
hours helping people… but you can’t be annoyed be people asking the
same questions. It’s simply going to keep happening and being rude
isn’t going to change that. The others on the support team are
generally quite nice about answering the same questions.
I still can’t tell if you actually think I’m an idiot, but you’re
clearly annoyed by the point I’m addressing. I originally brought up
the question on the Ext forums (no one else had asked it before, btw)
and then wrote my original blog post as a follow up. I don’t
appreciate being singled out to be made the butt of a joke – that’s all.