After consulting with Jon I have decided that I will be writing my article entitled "DOM Table Sorting, No Training Wheels." Now I have to find a real world example to work with to show that it can be done outside of a test case environment, and scope out the initial hurdles.

Useful and logically legitimate use of afore mentioned global variable hack. window.childWindow = window.open("thechild.html"); window.childWindow. document.write("i am the child window"); window.childWindow. window.document.title = "satanic spawn"; unfortunately you can't give the child window an attribute that can be read by that child, but you've always got window.opener, so control can go both ways. My previous problem was not solved by this, you still have to go window.open("","popup"); window.close("popup"); in order to close a popup window when you don't know if it exists.

window.globalvar = "Boo!"; wonder if this ugliness could solve a problem i was having losing my reference to a popup window? have to remember exactly what the problem was.

PPK wrote a solid little essay on The Future of JavaScript that's worth a read. To me it reads as a call to arms for all Front End developers to invent, document and distribute powerful DOM scripts. I'd like to write an article entitled "DOM Table Sorting, Minus the Test Case Training Wheels" wherein I explore the use of client side table sorting within the context of real database data and application functionality. Of course I'd have to get the sorting working better where I am using it now. I'll write an outline of the problems I'm having that would become the outline of the article and discuss them with Jon.

Weather.com Sucks! Providing content on the web is all about scannability. Nobody wants to have to un-pack information, we just want what we are looking for to be right there in bullet points. It rained last night which cut the ash out of the air from all these fires. Cybil and I have been saying that next time it rains we're going to the Getty museum to check out the gardens, it couldn't be more perfect. But Cybil works 11-3, so I went to weather.com to find out when the sunset is. Put in my zip code, and the information is right there smack in the middle. Only I didn't see it because they had put it in this strange half sentence format Today's sunrise/sunset times for: Los Angeles 6:13 AM/5:01 PM Why they couldn't just put it in the standard label: information pairing that they use on the rest of the page, or call attention to it with small icons? But no, they use icons to call attention to their internal advertising. Lame. At least we'll have time after Cybil gets out of work to go visit the Getty before it's dark.