micmath blog

Quick, just from examining this code (no fair testing it), what will the following alert?

var f = 1;
function f() { }

alert(f);

The fact that I consider this code intersesting (or at least instructive) may tip you to what the answer will be: it's 1. Surprised? If you are you're likely suffering from the common misconception that your JavaScript code is executed in the order you wrote it. If that were true the variable named f would first be declared, then assigned the value 1. Next the function named f would be declared, replacing that existing f and finally the alert would show us the function. But we know that's not what happens.

What really happens is explained in section 10.1.3 of the ECMAScript specification, entitled "Variable Instantiation". If you imagine there is a Variable Object and the JavaScript engine is adding properties to it based on your source code, the specification defines the following distinct steps and the order in which they must happen:

• Function declarations
• Variable declarations
• The rest

Note that when you write var f = 1; you are really doing two things together: declaring a variable named f and then assigning the value of 1 to it. So, putting all that together, effectively the code in our previous example is the same as this:

function f() { } // function declarations first
var f;           // variable declarations next
f = 1;           // the rest
alert(f);

Web-based advertising has always been the unloved stepson of web development. Well I say unloved but actually there are lots of people who feel a sort of passion about things like "branding", "click-through rates" and "return on investment". The fact that these things personally bore me doesn't change the fact that there has always been an understanding in this business that if we want to have free-to-view web pages, we must then have a load of ad banners all over those pages. I'm going to concede that point, at least for the sake of my bigger argument.

And I'm conceding the point even though I have no personal experience to base it on: I myself have been using the World Wide Web from it's first days and can safely say I have never, not once ever, clicked on a single web ad. Not even one. Am I living this lifestyle to make some socio-political point? Nope, I'm just still waiting to see a web ad that is interesting enough to click on.

The ad mongers obviously know about uncooperative potential-customers like me, but when they analyze the problem of "he's still waiting to see a web ad that is interesting enough to click on" they come to the wrong conclusion that the solution is to make their uninteresting ads easier to see. If the blinking banners aren't appealing, they reason, then waving a popup window about in front of the content will surely make him want to click; it's worth a try anyway, right? I mean what's the harm?

So here's the harm: Since 2004 every major web browser has had an option to "block popup windows" built-in. And if that's not enough, users can choose from a wide variety of addons and plugins to do the same. If you, wayward web developer, have ever put an uninteresting ad in an popup window, you have helped to practically remove the popup window feature from every modern web browser. Well done, I hope you're proud of yourself.

But in the arms race for greater "CPMs" and "ROIs" there can be no surrender. If the user has developed an immunity to popup windows then there are other fronts to attack.

Now, based on the title of this blog entry, you might guess that I'm suggesting that Lightbox style ads are the latest front, and you'd be right. But I don't intend to criticize the technique used by JavaScript Lightbox implementations, they are no more evil than popup windows were ten years ago. Lightboxes don't annoy people, but annoying Lightboxes do. And here we are standing at the start of yet another very predictable path: how long before we see advice on how to disable JavaScript Lightboxes?

The problem is that a JavaScript Lightbox is not as distinct and self-contained as a popup window. Probably the most practical way to disable all JavaScript Lightboxes will be to disable JavaScript. This is a race back to the 1990's in terms of web development and it should be a concern to all of us.

But it's hard to know who to address this point to: I don't have the illusion that aggressive web advertisers, working for financially-desperate companies are going to suddenly develop a long-view ethos about this issue based on my warnings. In-your-face, hard-sell, intrusive web advertising will always be around but maybe it's up to all of us to enforce a new social contract, if these offenses are offered up by people who speak in terms of dollars and "clicks", then we can give our answer: don't click on those damned things. In fact add those products to your own blacklist of bad members of our web community. Avoid the hosting web sites altogether if possible. This is a campaign for us, if you're a web developer you may be helping yourself in the long run.