ynotds's Journal: Don't ever call submit submit

This really should have been a headline item in HTML 101 but it is surprisingly difficult to find a quick explanation of the non-obvious diagnostics which eventually led me to a relatively simple problem.

When there is a namespace clash in JavaScript, properties outrank methods.

When you name a submit button, that name becomes a property of the containing form. Assuming the containing form tag says name='myformname', the very useful document.myformname.submit() method becomes unreachable.

And the obvious answer, changing the form name, becomes impossible to contemplate when your main client's business-defining intranet is built on middleware which calls every submit button submit so that progress through a process is represented by values of $in{'submit'}.

I've even relatively recently added code which logs $in{'submit'} along with other details of every process that is run so we can learn more about actual usage patterns.