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Recently the Rocketman and i have been arguing about webkit/Chromium DOM capabilities and limitations; like the failure to fully implement CSS3! Especially missing is support for CSS3 page layout / page break innovations. I realized that i didn't have a good understanding of browser DOM - client side issues, and came across this interesting post from Dave Ward concerning DOM and jQuery.
The core issue behind my discussions with the Rocketman have to do with creating a DOM view from OpenXML and ODF documents, and then passing that view to the webkit/Chromium engine. So we weren't all that interested in cross browser support or in how IE8 handles DOM-JavaScript. Dave Ward however not only provides a good discussion about DOM-JavaScript and the importance of jQuery as a force of interoperability, he also points out that Microsoft supports jQuery - including direct support within Visual Studio!
".....Though JavaScript itself is a great programming language, the document object model (DOM) can be a web developer's worst nightmare.  The DOM is a method through which browsers expose an interface allowing JavaScript code to manipulate elements, handle events, and perform other tasks related to a document within the browser.  While almost every browser implements an ECMA standard version of JavaScript, their DOM implementations are inconsistent and quirky at best.  In fact, if you've had bad experiences with client-side programming in the past, it's likely that the DOM was the true source of your frustrations, not JavaScript itself.  This is exactly the pain point which jQuery addresses....
..... "Officially supported by Microsoft - For many Microsoft developers, this official blessing is the clincher. Not only will Microsoft begin including jQuery with Visual Studio, but it is part of the default ASP.NET MVC project template. What's more, Microsoft Product Support Services has already begun offering support for jQuery."....

Good article covering lots of JavaScript Libraries and their specific uses. excerpt:  Over drinks, one person proclaimed, "No one programs in JavaScript, they just string together jQuery calls." This statement is certainly not true, but like a hand grenade, it gets close enough to make its point. jQuery sure seems to be everywhere, and with good reason: Its creators took all of the neat ideas from libraries like Prototype, Dojo, and Yahoo's YUI, then turned them into something that was just a tad easier to use. When jQuery nurtured fertile plug-in culture, the library became irreplaceable. One seemingly random estimate claimed that at least 70 percent of JavaScript is jQuery. While there is probably no scientific way to make such a blanket statement, the fact that someone would try is good enough.

OK, this article gets my vote as the most important read of the year.  We all know that the the Web is the future of both computing and communications/connectivity.  But wha tis the future of the Web?  Uber coder Mike Loukides says it's JavaScript, and what a compelling case he builds.  This is a must read.  Key concepts are diigo highlighted :) excerpt: JavaScript has "grown up." I'm sure there are many JavaScript developers who would take issue with that judgement, and argue that JavaScript has been a capable, mature, and under-appreciated language all along. They may be right, though you can write any program in any complete programming language, including awful things like BASIC. What makes a language useful is some combination of the language's expressiveness and the libraries and tools available. JavaScript clearly passed the expressiveness barrier a long time ago, even if the ceremony required for creating objects is distasteful. But recently, we've seen some extremely important game-changers: jQuery, JSON, Node.js, and HTML5. JavaScript may have been a perfectly adequate language in the past, but these changes (and a few others that I'll point out) have made JavaScript a language that is essential for every developer to know. If there's one language you need to learn in the next year, it's JavaScript. Insightful comment: HTML5 is a JavaScript API, introducing new elements but significantly redefining ALL elements as objects or classes.  Elements can be expressed with tags.  Or, you can use DOM JavaScripting to create elements. 

Great links to HTML5-CSS tools and tricks excerpt: 3. Use Multiple Stylesheets for Device Support Including a mobile-specific stylesheet on your main site with certain parameters that add or subtract features, based on what device is being used, can be an elegant and effective way to serve content across multiple devices. Dominique Hazael-Massieux wrote a great article for A List Apart last year that covers some of the basics and also links to some of the most common parameters for handheld support. Dave Shea included his own solution back in 2008 that is still pretty usable for lots of devices. More recently, Chris Coyier at CSS-Tricks discussed how to add in screen size and browser support via CSS or jQuery, and he includes his own downloadable examples. Dave Calhoun has some excellent suggestions in his series on mobile web development.

Excellent guidelines for developing crossplatform smartphone apps in HTML5-CSS-JavaScript.  Covers Appcellerator, Sencha, jQuery, and Drupal.  Great resource!

Great chart and HTM5 App development advice from pinch/zoom developer Brian Fling!   excerpt: In a post on pinch/zoom's blog Swipe, Fling discusses the "Anatomy of a HTML5 Mobile App" and what developers will need to get started, what the pitfalls are and why HTML5 is so difficult. HTML5 is a lot like HTML, just more advanced. Fling says that "if you know HTML, then chances are you'll understand what's new in HTML5 in under an hour." Yet, he also says that HTML5 is almost nothing without Javascript and CSS. Device detection, offline data, Javascript tools, testing, debugging and themes are issues that need to be resolved with the tools at hand. One of the big challenges that developers face is the need to fully comprehend Javascript. That starts from the most basic of codes on up. Fling says that many developers cannot write Javascript without the aid of frameworks like Prototype, MooTools, jQuery or Scriptaculous. That would not be so much of a problem if all an application consisted of was functionality and theme, but the data and multiple device requirements of apps and working with the HTML5 code means that troubleshooting a Web application can be extremely difficult if a developer does not know what to look for in Javascript. Fling breaks down the three parts of the Javascript stack that is required in building HTML5 apps - hybrid, core and device scripts. Then there is CSS. Fling likens CSS to the make, model, interior and attention to detail of a car. "Javascript definitely influences our experience as well, but they are the machinations out of view," Fling wrote. "We absolutely need it to be there, but as any Top Gear fan can tell you - power under the hood doesn't always equal a powerful experience." So, HTML5 can get the job. But can it do the job? Fling says yes, but with these caveats:

While HTML5 developers are working directly with JavaScript, SVG, CSS, and other technologies, Flash designers enjoy a high-level environment with timelines, drawing tools, easy control of animation effects, and more. With Edge, released in beta Sunday, Adobe is striving to bring that same ease of use to HTML5 development. The user interface will be familiar to anyone who's used Flash or After Effects; a timeline allowing scrubbing and jumping to any point in an animation, properties panels to adjust objects, and a panel to show the actual animation. Behind the scenes, Edge uses standard HTML5. Scripting is provided by a combination of jQuery and Adobe's own scripts, and animation and styling uses both scripts and CSS. Pages produced by Edge encode the actual animations using a convenient JSON format. Edge itself embeds the WebKit rendering engine-the same one used in Apple's Safari browser and Google's Chrome-to actually display the animations.

Today, Strobe Inc. is launching a new platform that helps developers build HTML5-based Web applications for desktops, smartphones and tablets, and centrally manage them from a single interface. The launch is a major leap forward in HTML5 app development. From one interface, teams can manage code (both test code and production code), configure the app's deployment across platforms (Web, Android, iOS, etc.), add additional services (social, push notifications, authentication, etc.), and even track analytics within an easy-to-use dashboard. In short, it's a comprehensive platform that makes building apps with Web technologies, like HTML5 and JavaScript, not just possible, but easy, straightforward and fast. The company was co-founded by Ruby on Rails Core Team member Carl Lerche, Ruby on Rails, jQuery and SproutCore Core team member Yehuda Katz, and Charles Jolley, formerly the JavaScript Frameworks Manager for Apple. At Apple, Jolley worked on Apple's Web products like MobileMe and iCloud. He's also the creator of the open source JavaScript framework, SproutCore, which powered Apple's Web services and is now a key part of the Strobe platform. In addition to SproutCore, Strobe also uses PhoneGap, the popular HTML5 app platform. PhoneGap lets developers author apps using Web technologies then deliver them in a native wrapper to the iTunes App Store, Android Marketplace and other app stores. It also happens to integrate nicely with SproutCore.

Good interview with Charles Jolley - SproutCore - WebKit (met Charles at Web 2.0).  He has left Apple and started a SproutCore Web App development company called "Strobe".  Looking very good Charles! The Blended Brew Apps have become a preferred way of accessing information on mobile devices. But developers want to provide a unified experience, and that is why Jolley believes that we will soon have apps that use HTML5 inside a native app wrapper. "People are looking for an either/or solution, but it is not going to end up like that," he said. Think of Strobe's offerings as a way to create an experience that is a blend of HTML5 and native mobile apps. How this works is that an application is developed in HTML5 instead of proprietary formats. It is wrapped in a native app wrapper for, say, the iPhone, but when accessed through a web browser on a PC or any other device, like tablet, it offers the same user experience. This is a good way to solve a problem that is only going to get compounded many fold as multiple endpoints for content start to emerge. The co-existence of web and native apps also means content publishers need to think differently about content and how it is offered to consumers. The multiplicity of endpoints (iPhone, iPad, TV and PC) is going to force content producers to think differently about how they build the user experiences for different sets of screens. Jolley argues that the best way to do so is to stop taking a document-centric view that is part of the PC-era. In the touch-based mobile device era, folks need to think of ways to have a single technology stack married to the ability to create unique experiences for different devices. And if you do that, there is no doubt that HTML5 and native apps can live in harmony.

I followed the reader comments for "7 Free CSS Editors", and CodeLobster was frequently mentioned.  Looks pretty good.  The free version includes:  HTML code inspector  CSS editor  JavaScript editor  PHP editor  PHP debugger Professional versions focus on Drupal, Joomla, WordPress, Symphony, CakePHP, Yii, and Facebook among others.  Good stuff for PHP work.