Does anyone actually use the phrase DHTML anymore?

Question

I'm not sure if this is exactly appropriate but I have what I think is a interesting question.

Does anyone actually use the phrase DHTML anymore in a professional environment?

I came across the the word the other day for the first time in years and shuddered at the thought of it. To me the acronym Dynamic HTML just sounds so 1999, it brings me back to the days when I first discovered programming and web development and thought it was awesome to have scripts which modified the status bar and made things fly around the page.

I for one have never used the phrase recently and would never dream of saying it in a professional environment to clients or colleges as I feel there is an amateur and dated stigma attached to it.

What are your thoughts?

Answer 1

Nope, not least because HTML is your presentation layer and not the interaction layer, of which should be used to extend the functionality of the presentation layer without depending on it.

Current design / development standards have split them up as such, so calling it DHTML is probably inaccurate. Progressive enhancement and graceful degradation baby!

For this reason alone, I shudder when http://www.dynamicdrive.com/ appears in a Google search, I remember in my youth looking at those clocks that follow your mouse around the screen, thinking how cool it would be to implement that on my website. :-)

Answer 2

Does anyone actually use the phrase DHTML anymore in a professional environment?

Yes, although it has largely been replaced with "Ajax" (which in turn is being replaced with "HTML 5") and, of course, there is always http://dhtml5.com/

Non-developers have a tendency to grab onto a buzzword and use it to mean "Stuff that looks cutting edge" … and then refuse to let go. We still have to work with them though, and it usually just means helping them write proper requirements specifications (which you would have to do anyway).