News for hackers. Stuff that matters.

A comment on You might not need JavaScript. Parent comment

Re:You might not need JavaScript by eyelidlessness on Wednesday October 12, 2016 @12:24PM (#12694242)
Why would syntax highlighting need JavaScript?
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:You might not need JavaScript by marxidad on Wednesday October 12, 2016 @02:23PM (#12695312)
The browser doesn't natively support syntax highlighting (they aren't features of HTML or CSS).
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:You might not need JavaScript by xigency on Wednesday October 12, 2016 @05:52PM (#12696698)
That hardly makes sense. Changing the color of text is definitely a feature of HTML and CSS.

What's the lazy reason for not rendering that before serving the html page.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:You might not need JavaScript by eyelidlessness on Wednesday October 12, 2016 @05:16PM (#12696476)
It depends what you mean by "support". There are two things a JavaScript syntax highlighter is doing:

1. Classify each token (whether this is building up an AST or doing something more fuzzy/clever is immaterial for this discussion); 2. Construct a DOM tree (HTML) that is styled (CSS).

Step 1 does not have to happen client-side at all. Step 2 doesn't require JavaScript at all.

[ Parent | on HN ]