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By Laurence Rozier
(8/18/98)
If you've ever tried to use JavaScript to build a business application, chances are you've bumped into the document-centric walls created by the Document Object Model (DOM) enough times that you get a nosebleed just thinking about it. More than the frustrating differences in the DOMs of Microsoft Internet Explorer 4.x and Netscape Navigator 4.x, there are limitations in the DOM itself.
As businesses have moved their software development to object-oriented languages such as C++, Smalltalk, and Java, they've created business object models to help speed application development. But the object orientation of JavaScript--at least as it comes to your desktop in the guise of a Web browser--stops at the four corners of the document object. If you need to use JavaScript to create or manipulate objects such as customers, accounts, vendors, employees, and products, you face a potentially monumental job.
FreeDOM is an object-oriented framework built to solve this problem. The D stands for Dynamic, not, as you might expect, Document--it's the Free Dynamic Object Model. Using FreeDOM, you can take a fully object-oriented, framework-based approach to application design that integrates the browser into your object-oriented development scheme.
FreeDOM is an open source project, which means that you can freely distribute the source code provided certain copyright notices remain intact. It uses features of JavaScript 1.2, so you must be sure your users are running a compatible browser. Currently, FreeDOM has been confirmed to work with the following browser-platform combinations: on the PC, Navigator 4.x, excluding 4.04, and Internet Explorer 4.x, excluding 4.01; and on the Mac, Navigator 4.0 through 4.03 and Internet Explorer 4.0 and 4.01. For ongoing discussion of browser-platoform compatibility issues and workarounds, check out the FreeDOM discussion in the Builder Buzz.
But enough introduction. Let's get started.
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