Web Development Beginner

What is DOM (Document Object Model)?

A programming interface for HTML documents that represents the page structure as a tree of objects that can be manipulated with JavaScript.

The DOM represents HTML as a tree of nodes. JavaScript can read, modify, add, and remove elements: document.getElementById("id"), element.innerHTML, document.createElement("div"), parent.appendChild(child). Events (click, submit, keypress) trigger JavaScript functions.

Direct DOM manipulation is slow for complex updates. Modern frameworks (React, Vue) use a Virtual DOM — an in-memory representation that calculates minimal changes before updating the real DOM. Understanding the DOM is fundamental to frontend development.

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Related Terms

Server-Sent Events (SSE)

A web technology enabling servers to push real-time updates to browsers over a single HTTP connection, simpler than WebSockets.

A property where performing an operation multiple times produces the same result as performing it once.

A CSS layout model that provides efficient arrangement of items within a container, handling alignment, distribution, and spacing.

Progressive Enhancement

A web design strategy that starts with basic functionality for all browsers and progressively adds advanced features for capable ones.

A communication protocol that enables full-duplex, real-time data exchange between a browser and server over a single connection.

CDN (Content Delivery Network)

A distributed network of servers that delivers web content to users from the geographically closest location.

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